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THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

BORO MEDICINE MAN, WITH MY RIFLE

THE NORTH-WEST

AMAZON,S,, ...,,

NOTES OF SOME MONTHS SPENT
AMONG CANNIBAL TRIBES

THOMAS WHIFFEN

F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I.
Captain H.P. (14TH Hussars)

LONDON

CONSTABLE AND COMPANY Ltd.

1915

2-2-30
Ws-7

c^^

TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE

Dr. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, O.M.

THESE NOTES ARE DEDICATED

PREFACE

In presenting to the public the results of my journey through
the lands about the upper waters of the Amazon, I make
no pretence of challenging conclusions drawn by such ex-
perienced scientists as Charles Waterton, Alfred Russel
Wallace, Richard Spruce, and Henry Walter Bates, nor to
compete with the indefatigable industry of those recent
explorers Dr. Koch-Griinberg and Dr. Hamilton Rice.

Some months of the years 1908 and 1909 were passed
by me travelling in regions between the River Issa and the
River Apaporis where white men had scarcely penetrated
previously. In the remoter parts of these districts the tribes
of nomad Indians are frankly cannibal on occasion, and
provide us with evidence of a condition of savagery that
can hardly be found elsewhere in the world of the twentieth
century. It will be noted that this area includes the
Putumayo District.

With regard to the references in footnotes and appendices,
I have inserted them to suggest where similarities of culture
or variations of a given custom are to be found. These
notes may be of some use to the student of such problems
as the question of cultural contact with Pacific peoples, and
at the least they represent the evidence on which I have
based my own conclusions.

THOMAS WHIFFEN.

London, 1914.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Introductory

CHAPTER H

Topography — Rivers — Floods and rainfall — Climate — Soil — Animal
and vegetable life — Birds — Flowers — Forest scenery — Tracks —
Bridges — Insect pests — Reptiles — Silence in the forest —
Travelling in the bush — Depressing effects of the forest — Lost
in the forest — Starvation the crowning horror . . -17

CHAPTER HI

The Indian homestead — Building — Site and planof maloka — Furniture
— Inhabitants of the house — Fire — IQ^aily life — Insect inhabitants
— Pets ..... r .... 40

CHAPTER IV

Classification of Indian races — Difficulties of tabulating — Language-
groups and tribes — Names — Sources of confusion — Witoto and
J^ Boro — Localities of language-groups — Population of districts —
V Intertribal strife — Tribal enemies and friends — Reasons for end-
less warfare — Intertribal trade and communications — Relation-
ships— Tribal organisation — The chief, his position and powers —
Law — Tribal council — ;Tobacco-drinking — Marriage system and
regulations — Position of women^^^^aves . . . • 53

CHAPTER V

Dress and ornament — Geographical and tribal differentiations —
Festal attire — Feather ornaments — Hair-dressing — Combs —

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

PAGE

Dance girdles — Beads — Necklaces — Bracelets — Leg rattles —
Ligatures — Ear-rings — Use of labret — Nose pins — Scarification
— Tattoo — Tribal marks — Painting ..... 71

CHAPTER VI

Occupations — Sexual division and tabu — Tribal manufactures — Arts
and cffftS:rT^rSwrrig^— -Carving — Metals — Tools and implements'
— No textile fabrics — Pottery — Basket-making — Hammocks —
Cassava -squeezer and grater — Pestle and mortar — Wooden
vessels — Stone axes — Methods of felling trees — Canoes — Rafts
— Paddles .......... 90

CHAPTER Vn

Agiicjjlture — Plantations — Preparation of ground in the forest —
Paucity of agricultural instruments — Need for diligence —
Women's incessant toil — No special harvest-time — Maize the only
grain grown — No use for sugar — Manioc cultivation — Peppers —
Tobacco — Coca cultivation — Tree-climbing methods — Indian
woqcL-craftzr-Indian tracking — Exaggerated sporting yarns —
Indian sense of locaUty and accuracy of observation — Blow-pipes
— Method of making blow-pipes — Darts — Indian improvidence
— Migration of game — Traps and snares — Javelins — Hunting
and fishing rights — Fishing — Fish traps — Spearing and poison-
ing fish .......... 102

*|.-

CHAPTER Vm

The Indian armoury — Spears — Bows and arrows — Indian strategy —
Forest tactics and warfare — Defensive measures — Secrecy and
safety — The Indian's science of war — Prisoners — War and
anthropophagy — Cannibal tribes — Reasons for cannibal practices
— Ritual of vengeance — Other causes — No intra-tribal cannibal-
ism— The anthropophagous feast — Human relics — Necklaces of
teeth — Absence of salt — Geophagy . . . . .115

CHAPTER IX

The food quest — Indians omnivorous eaters — Tapir and other animals
used for food — Monkeys — The peccary — Feathered game —
Vermin — Eggs, carrion, and inte^a^eg^ not eaten— -Honey — Fish
— Manioc — Preparation of cassava — Peppers— The Indian hot-
pot— Lack of salt — Indian meals — Cooking — Fruits — Cow-tree
milk . .......... 126

CONTENTS

CHAPTER X

Drinks, drugs, and poisons : their use and preparation — Unfermented
drinks — Caapi — Fermented drinks — Cahuana — Coca : its pre-
paration, use, and abuse — Parica — Tobacco — Poison and poison-
makers . . . . . . . . . .138

CHAPTER XI

Small families — Birth tabu — Birth customs — Infant mortality — In-
fanticide— Couvade — Name-giving — Names — Tabu on names —
Childhood — Lactation — Food restrictions — Child-life and train-
ing— Initiation . . . . . . . . .146

CHAPTER XII

Marriage regulations — Monogamy — Wards and wives — Courtship —
Qualifications for matrimony — Preparations for marriage —
Child marriages — Exception to patrilocal custom — Marriage
ceremonies — Choice of a mate — Divorce — Domestic quarrels —
Widowhood ......... 159

V- CHAPTER XIII

Sickness — Death by poison — Infectious diseases — Cruel treatment of
sick and aged — Homicide — Retaliation for murdef^Tribal and
personal quarrels — Diseases — Remedies — Death — Mourning —
Burial 168

CHAPTER XIV

The medicine-man, a shaman — Remedies and cures — Powers and
duties of the medicine-man — Virtue of breath — Ceremonial heal-
ing— Hereditary ofdce — Training — Medicine-man and tigers —
Magic-working — Properties — Evil always due to bad magic —
Influence of medicine-man — Method of magic-working — Magical
_cures, . .......... 178

' CHAPTER XV

Indian dances — Songs without meaning — Elaborate preparations-:^
The Chief's invitation — Numbers assembled — Dance step
— Reasons for dances — Special dances — Dance staves — Arrange-

-4-

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

ment of dancers — Method of airing a grievance — Plaintiff's song
of complaint — The tribal " black list " — Manioc-gathering dance
and song — Muenane Riddle Dance — A discomfited dancer —
Indian riddles and mimicry — Dance intoxication — An unusual
incident — A favourite dance -^The cannibal dance — A mad
festival of savagery — The strange fascination of the Amazon

CHAPTER XVI

Songs the essential element of native dances — Indian imagination
and poetry — Music entirely ceremonial — Indian singing — Simple
melodies — Words without meaning — Sense of time — Limitations
of songs — Instrumental music — Pan-pipes — Flutes and fifes —
Trumpets — Jurupari music and ceremonial — Castanets — Rattles
— Drums — The manguare — Method of fashioning drums — Drum
language — Signal and conversation — Small hand-drums . . 206

CHAPTER XVH

The Indians' majg.co-reli|ious system — The Good Spirit and the Bad
Spirit — Names ol deities^ — Character of Good Spirit — His visit to
earth — Question of missionary influence — Lesser subordinate
spirits — Child-lifting— No prayer or supplication — Classification
of spirits — ImmortaUty of the soul — Land of the After-Life —
Ghosts and name tabu — Temporary disembodied spirits — Extra-
mundane spirits — Spirits of particularised evils — Spirits of in-
animate objects — The jaguar and anaconda magic beasts — Tiger
folk — Fear of unknown — Suspicions about camera — Venerated
objects — Charms — ^Magic against magic — Omens . . . 218

CHAPTER XVm

Darkness feared by Indians — Story-telling — Interminable length of
tales — ^Variants — Myths — Sun and moon — Deluge traditions —
Tribal stories — Amazons — White Indians tradition — Boro tribal
tale — Amazonian equivalents of many world -tales — Beast
stories — Animal characteristics — Difference of animal char-
acteristics in tale and tabu — No totems — Indian hatred of
animal world . . . . . . . . . 236

CHAPTER XIX

Limitations of speech — Differences of dialect — ^Language-gr(iups —
Tribal names — Difficulties of languages — Method of translitera-
tion— Need of a common medium — Ventral ejaculations — Con-
struction— Pronouns as suflftx or prefix — Negatives — Gesture

CONTENTS xiii

PAGE

language — Numbers and reckoning — Indefinite measure — Time
— No writing, signs, nor personal marks — Tribal calls — Drum-
language code — Conversational repetitions — Noisy talkers —
Ventriloquists — Falsetto voice — Conversational etiquette . 246

^. CHAPTER XX

No individualism — Effect of isolation — Extreme reserve of Indians —
Cruelty->-Dislike and fear of strangers — Indian hospitality —
Treachery — Theft punished by death — Dualism of ethics —
Vengeance — Moral sense and custom — Modesty of the women —
Jealousy of the men-*-Hatred of white man — Ingratitude — Curi-
osity— Indians retarded but not degenerate — No evidence of
Reversion from higher culture — A neolithic people^— ConclusibhT ' 255

APPENDICES

I. Physical Characteristics ....... 269

11. Mongoloid Origin ........ 280

III. Depilation 282

IV. Colour Analysis and Measurements ..... 283
V. Articles noted by Wallace as in use among the Uaupes

Indians that are found with the Issa-Japura Tribes . . 291

VI. Names of Deities ........ 293

VII. Vocabularies and Lists of Names ..... 296

VIII. Poetry 3"

LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO 313

INDEX 315

HI:

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE NO. FACING PAGE

Boro Medicine Man, with my Rifle . . Frontispiece

I. Houses in the " Rubber Belt " of the Issa Valley . 4

II. A House in the " Rubber Belt," Issa Valley . .16

(I. Typical River View below the Mouth of the Negro "j
River I

2. Bank of Main Amazon Stream in the Vicinity of the f
Mouth of the Japura River J

River View on Main Stream near Issa River 1

V ^ 20

Landscape on Upper Amazon Main Stream J

V. The Bulge-stemmed Palm, Iriartea Venticosa, showing

portion of Leaf and Fruit . . . .28

VI. Flowers and Section of Leaf of the Bussu Palm. The

Leaf is used for Thatching . . . .44

^^, fi. Self, with Nonuy a Tribe \

'\2. Muenane Tribe f

(1. Group of Witoto 1

'\2. Group of Some of my Carriers/

IX. Medicine Man and his Wife (Andoke) . . .72

X. Boro Tribesmen . . . . . -74

XL Witoto Feather Head-dresses . , . . .76

XI I. Groups of Resigero Women . . . .78

XIII. Centre of Dancing Group — Muenane . . .80

XIV. Boro Comb of Palm Spines set in Pitch and finished

with Basketwork of Split Cane, Fibre Strings, and
Tufts of Parrots' Feathers . . . .78

{I. Dukaiya (Okaina) Bead Dancing-girdle ^

2. Condor Claws, used by Andoke Medicine Man I 80
of the Upper Japura River j

XVI. Necklaces of Human and Tiger Teeth . . .82

(I. Necklace of Polished Nutshells. 2. Leg Rattles ^
of Beads and Nutshells. 3, 4, 5, and 6. Bead Neck- 1
laces. The Black " Beads " are Bits of Polished j
Nutshell, threaded between White Beads J

XVI

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

fc^ PLATE NO.

^ XVIII.

y XIX,

V XX.
XXI.

XXIL

XXIII.

XXIV.
XXV.

XXVI.
XXVII.

XXVIII.
XXIX

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

rC XXXIII,

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

Arm Ligatures. Witoto Leg
2, Witoto, Ligatures

FACING 1

Boro Ligatures
Boro Leg and

Ligature
I and 3, Boro.
Andoke Girls ......

, Witoto Baskets of Split Cane and Fibre .

I Boro Necklace of Jaguars' Teeth with Incised"!
Patterns I

Necklace of Jaguar Teeth, Incised, and Flute j
made of Human Bone J

. Boro Cassava-squeezer. (A) Loop at End

{I. Okaina Group ^

2. Group of Okaina Women/

Indian Plantation cleared by Fire preparatory^

to Cultivation
View on Affluent of the Kahuinari River J
Eyythroxylon-Coca .....

II and 2. Andoke Bamboo Cases with Darts and^j
Cotton. 3. Dart with Cotton attached. 4. Blow- 1
pipe with Dart. 5. Javelin. 6. Fishing Trident, f
7. Spears in Bamboo Case. 8. Dance Staff J

Andoke Bamboo Case with Darts for Blow-pipe and
Gourd full of Cotton ....

I. Water Jar, Menimehe ; (a) Witoto. 2. Drums A
(Witoto). 3. Pan-pipes, Witoto ; {a) Boro. 4.
Stone Axe (Andoke). 5. Paddle used on Main y
Amazon Stream. 6. Paddle used on Issa and
Japura Rivers. 7. Menimehe Hand Club. 8.
^Wooden Sword (Boro) . 9. Pestle — Coca, etc. (Boro) ^
Bamboo Cases, filled with Darts for Blow-pipe,
showing Fish- jaw Scraper, and Gourd filled
with Raw Cotton. One Dart has Tuft of Cotton
placed ready for Use. These are Andoke Work
Witoto War Gathering

fi. Boro Necklace made of Marmoset Teeth \
1 2. Andoke Necklace of Human Teeth /

Boro Women making Cassava
Witoto Cassava - squeezer. Boro Manioc - grater

with Palm -spine Points
One of the Ingredients of the Famous Curare
Poison

84
86
88
90

92
96

106

108

116

118
120

124

132

134
138

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

xvii

PLATE NO.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

V XXXIX.

XL.
XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.
S/XLV.

XLVI.

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX

LIL

i LIII
LIV.

Incised Gourds .....

Karahone Child. Boro Women carrying Children

Boro Women carrying Children

Okaina Girls ......

Stone Axe Head (Boro). String of Magic Stones
(Andoke) ......

Anatto, Bixa Orellana. A Red Dye, or Paint, is
made from the Seed ....

Half Gourds decorated with Incised Patterns, made
by Witoto near the Mouth of the Kara Parana
River. Dukaiya (Okaina) Rattle made of Nut-
shells .......

Okaina Girls painted for Dance

Boro Dancing. Group of Nonuya, Men and
Women

Muenane Dance

Okaina Dance .

Pan-pipes

(Group of Witoto Women by Double-stemmed ^
Palm Tree I

Group of Witoto Men by Double-stemmed Palm j
Tree J

I and 2. Witoto Types. 3. Witoto from Kotue
River ......

J Combs. I. Andoke Comb with Nutshell Cup ior\
\ Rubber Latex. 2. Witoto Comb. 3. Boro Comb/

{Boro Tribesman from the Pama River)
A Menimehe Captive /

Witoto Types. Witoto Woman with Leg Liga-
tures ......

PAGE
144
150

190

192
194

196
200
202
204
210

232

270

272

274
278

MAPS

Map. I. Approximate Plan of Route .... 2

Map. 2. Sketch Map . . . . . .10

Map. 3. Diagrammatic Map of the Issa-Japura Central Water-
shed, showing Language Groups . . .58
Sketch Map of the North-Western Affluents of the Amazon

River . . . . . . . At end

Sketch Map of the Amazon River with its Northern Affluents A t end

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

In the spring of 1908, having been among the Unemployed
on the Active List for nearly two years on account of ill-
health, and wearying not only of enforced inactivity but
also perhaps of civilisation, I decided to go somewhere and
see something of a comparatively unknown and unrecorded
comer of the world. My mind reverted to pleasant days
spent in the lesser known parts of East Africa, and at this
moment I happened to come across Dr. Russel Wallace's
delightful Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro. His
spirited adventures, and the unique character of the country
through which he passed and the peoples he met, fascinated
me. I thought of attempting to complete his unfinished
journey up the Uaupes River, and imagined I would be able
to secure in South America all the instruments and materials
such an expedition required. There lay my initial error.
My inability to obtain anything of the sort hampered me
in scientific research, so that these chapters must simply be
regarded as impressions and studies of native ways and
doings, noted by a temporary dweller in their midst.

Difference of technique, industry, ability, and scientific
knowledge may in the light of future investigations reveal
errors or misapprehensions that must bring me into conflict
with those who may go there better equipped and with
greater understanding. But in any critical appraisement
it must be remembered that these tribes are changing day
by day, and every year that passes will increase the difference
between the Amazonian native as I knew him and as he
may be when studied by my successors. So far as in me

I B

2 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

lies, I have here set forth an account of what he was when
I travelled in his forest solitudes and fastnesses.

I left England towards the end of April 1908 and arrived
at Manaos on the Negro River on May 27. Incidentally I
arrived again at Manaos homeward bound on the same
day and almost at the same hour the following year.^ It
may be taken, therefore, that my entire journey covered
exactly twelve months.

On arrival at Manaos, I made inquiries as to the facilities
for proceeding to S. Gabriel near the junction of the
Negro and Uaupes Rivers, and thence up the latter stream.^
My theory at the time was that it would be possible to
ascend this river to its source, and from the vicinity to
make a way across country via the Apaporis, Japura, Issa,
and Napo Rivers to Iquitos. I soon found that the difficulty
of obtaining the necessary men would be immense, and the
ascent, in local opinion, impracticable without an expedition
on a scale for which I possessed neither the influence nor
the pecuniary resources. Persuaded that my line of least
resistance, so far as the Uaupes was concerned, would be
to reverse the contemplated journey and work from Iquitos
to a point on the Uaupes and then descend to Manaos, I
proceeded by the Navigation Company's steamboat to the
former town, where I arrived the second week in June.

In company with Mr. David Cazes, the British Consul,
to whom I am indebted for many kindnesses, I made a
trip up the Napo River. It was soon apparent, however,
that it would be practically impossible to cross from that
river to the Issa. This was not due to the difficulty of
porterage, because there is a *' recognised route " from a
point some way above the mouth of the Curaray to Puerto
Barros, but to the impossibility of obtaining men. Rumours
were rife at this time of fighting between the Colombian
and Peruvian rubber-gatherers on the Issa River, and the
Napo Indians would not go in that direction on account

1 My arrival in England was postponed to some months later through
an attack of beriberi.

2 It was unknown to me till afterwards that Dr. Koch-Griinberg of
Berlin had, in 1904, ascended the Uaupes to, I believe, 71° west longitude.

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THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 3

of a not unnatural dread lest they be treated as enemies by
whichever party of combatants they might happen to meet.

Eventually, through the good offices of the British Con-
sulate, I sailed from Iquitos by way of the main Amazon
River and the Issa or Putumayo River to Encanto at
the mouth of the Kara Parana, which I reached in the
middle of August. It is from this point that my notes on
the manners and customs of the Indians really commence.

I saw at once that it would be impossible to gain any
insight into the ways and customs of the various tribes
unless I spent some considerable time in what one might
call a roving commission among them. I had with me at
this time John Brown, a Barbadian negro. He had been
for some three years previously in the Issa district in the
employ of a Rubber Company, and I enhsted him as my
personal servant at Iquitos. He had *' married" a Witoto
woman some two years before, and through this attach-
ment I was able to derive much valuable information. In
fact, he was invaluable throughout the whole expedition,
and was more loyal" and more devoted than a traveller
with some experience of the African boy in his native
haunts had reason to anticipate of any black servant.

On the 1 8th of August we started for the Igara Parana,
having collected eight Indian carriers, two half-castes, and
eight " rationales," or semi-civilised Indians, armed with
Winchesters, together with three Indian women, wives of
three of the rationales.

It may here be mentioned that these armed Indians
were to be obtained in the Rubber Belt by arrangement
with their employers. It is the practice of the rubber-
gatherers to train Indian boys and utilise them as escort,
and to obtain rubber from the tribes hostile to those to
which the boys belong. This is perhaps necessary to avoid
collusion. In my experience there was never any question
of fixed charge or price when hiring carriers. They expected
to be given, at the conclusion of their service, a present of
cloth, beads, a shot gun,i or such other item of trade as

^ A rifle, where possessed, is never used against an animal but kept for
use against the white man.

4 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

their heart coveted. The line of argument was simple :
" You do what I tell you, and when we part I will make
you a rich man." Wealth was represented by cloth, beads,
and a knife. A boy I called Jim promised to go to the
end of the earth if I would give him a shot gun. This was
his sole ambition. He was one of my escort, and although
carrying a Winchester, I do not think it ever entered into
his head to make off with it. Such is the simple Indian
nature. I do not mean that he would not have run away
if such a plan suited him, but he would not have done so
for the sake and value of the Winchester.

The two half-breeds were rubber-collectors. They were
bound for the Igara Parana, and were only with me until
we reached Chorrera.

The semi-civilised Indians are fairly trustworthy, although
discipline must be strongly enforced to prevent looting if
only because of the danger of reprisals on the part of the
indigenous natives. During my wanderings the carriers
were often changed, especially while passing through the
Rubber Belt. Those men will always run if they get the
chance, even if they are in the midst of hostile tribes, when
to desert is more often death than not. In number the party
remained approximately the same throughout my journey.

The carriers must be incessantly shepherded, kept from
lagging behind or going ahead too quickly. They must not
be allowed to stop for any length of time or a forced camp
will be a necessity. It is the custom of all Indians to
bathe whenever possible, however heated they may be, and
this will have to be tolerated ; but if progress is to be made
they must not stop to eat. It was my custom to eat at
daybreak and again at the end of the day's march.

Treachery on the part of the native Indians it is always
necessary to guard against — ^in the Rubber Belt because of
the treatment they have received in the past ; farther
afield partly on accoimt of the rumours of such treatment,
and partly on the principle that it's the nervous dog that
bites. They ask but one question : " Why is the white
man here ? " They accord it but one answer : " We know
not. It is best to kill." And it is not, as is noted else-

PLATE 1.

-.>^-^' ^^

HOUSES IN THE RUBBER BELT OE THE ISSA N'ALLEV

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 5

where, the custom of the Indian to attack openly, but
when he has the chance of succeeding with little or no
danger to himself.

We reached Chorrera, or Big Falls, on the 22nd of
August, and thence wended our way by land up the
Igara Parana, arriving without much incident in the
Andoke country on the 19th of September. Here, by
arrangement with an Andoke chief, I managed to get a
yoimg Karahone lad, a slave who had been captured some
years previously by the Andoke and who said he would
take me to his own people across the great river. While
we were encamped near the banks of the Japura River, and
searching for the bulge-stemmed palm tree with which to
make a canoe, we observed three canoes of Karahone on
their way down the river, possibly after some warlike
expedition. We tried to stop them, but in vain. When,
eventually, we crossed the river, we found the occupants
of the canoes had given the alarm. Every house we visited
was abandoned, four in all, and the path was peppered
with poisoned stakes sharpened to the finest point and
exposed above ground for perhaps half to three-quarters
of an inch. A carrier who trod on one had to be carried
back as he was quite disabled for the march.

Returning to the Japura River, we made our way to
the upper reaches of the Kahuinari River, visiting different
tribes and collecting information. I was anxious at this
time to descend this river and find out, if possible, the fate
of Eugene Robuchon, the French explorer, who had been
missing for some two years.

It may be pertinent here to give in full the story of
Robuchon 's disappearance and my search for traces of his
last expedition.

Eugene Robuchon, the adventurous French explorer
whose notes on the Indians of the Putumayo are known to
every investigator, left the Great Falls on the Igara Parana
in November 1905. It was his intention to make for the
head waters of the Japura and to explore that river on behalf
of the Peruvian Government throughout its length for
traces of rubber. He started with a party consisting of

6 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

three negroes, one half-breed, and five Indians with one
Indian woman. He carried suppHes barely sufficient for
two months. I carefully examined all the survivors of the
expedition that I encountered, and from them gathered the
following account of the journey : —

Having left the Great Falls, Robuchon proceeded by
canoe up the Igara Parana to a point some ten miles above
the mouth of the Fue stream. He left the river there,
struck northward through the Chepei country, and reached
the Japura approximately at 74° W., some thirty miles
above the Kuemani River. The Indians encountered at
this spot belonged to a Witoto-speaking tribe, the Taikene.
They were friendly, but either could not or would not
provide Robuchon with a canoe. Three valuable weeks
were spent in the search for a suitable tree and in the
construction of a canoe.

When at length this was finished, the party started down-
stream, and for a time progressed without incident. No
natives were seen for several days. At last Robuchon's
Indians called his attention to a narrow path that led up
from the river-bank on the right. Anxious about his food
supply, he landed and followed the path until he came upon
a clearing and an Indian house. Eventually Robuchon
arranged with the inhabitants that four of them should
come down to the canoe with food and receive presents in
exchange. But when a larger number than he expected
appeared upon the bank, the explorer feared treachery and
at once pushed off without waiting for the much-needed
provisions. The Indians thereupon manned their canoes
and started in pursuit, shouting the while to him to stop.
But with his small party Robuchon dared take no chances.
He pushed on until the pursuers had been satisfactorily
outdistanced.

The boy who told me the tale was convinced that these
Indians were perfectly friendly in intention, and the incident
appeared to be proof of the nervous state of the party.
Some time after this, while shooting the rapids at the
Igarape Falls, the canoe was upset and the greater part
of the remaining stores was swept away.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 7

The details of this misadventure I was never able to
extract in a coherent fashion from the followers I inter-
viev/ed, but they agreed that very little food of any kind
was left, and what was rescued had been almost entirely
destroyed by water.

Short of food, and without a canoe, the boys became
mutinous. The three negroes and the half-breed deserted,
and sought to cut a way through the bush backward in the
direction whence they had come. This task was beyond
them, and, a few days later, weary, disheartened, and starv-
ing, they returned to beg Robuchon's forgiveness. The
reunited party improvised a raft, and, after undergoing the
customary hardships of an unequipped expedition in this
hostile country, reached the mouth of the Kahuinari. The
whole party was weak with hunger and fever, Robuchon him-
self prostrate and incapable of going farther. He determined
to remain where he was with the Indian woman and the
Great Dane hound, Othello. He ordered the negroes and
the half-breed to push on up the Kahuanari to a rubber-
gatherer's house which he believed was situated somewhere
between the Igara Parana and the Avio Parana. They
were to send back relief at the earliest possible moment.
The boys left Robuchon on February 3, 1906. He was
never again seen by any one in touch with civilisation.

The boys had journeyed for but a few hours when they
came across a herd of peccary. They killed more than they
could possibly use, but made no attempt whatever to carry
any meat back to the starving and abandoned Frenchman.
Instead they wasted two valuable days in gorging them-
selves and smoking the flesh for their own journey.

For days they followed the course of the Kahuinari,
hugging its right bank, and in this way happened across a
Colombian half-breed, from whom they sought assistance.
The Colombian took them to his house near the Avio
Parana but would not grant them even food until they
paid for it with the rifles they carried. The idea of suc-
couring Robuchon was far removed from his philosophy.
The boys, then, having surrendered their rifles in return for
the stores they so much needed, made the narrow crossing

8 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

from the Avio Parana to the Papunya River, and followed
that stream without deviation to its junction with the
river Issa. Turning backward up the left bank of the Issa,
they reached the military station at the mouth of the Igara
Parana and there told their tale.

When at last a Relief Expedition was made up, it con-
sisted of three negroes — John Brown and his comrades — and
seventeen half-breeds. The party left on its search for
Robuchon thirty-seven days after he had been abandoned
at the mouth of the Kahuinari. It took ten days to reach
the junction of the Avio Parana and the Kahuinari, and
twenty-one days more to arrive at the camp on the Japura.
It had taken ten weeks to bring help. The relief party
found some tools, some clothes, a few tins of coffee, a little
salt, and a camera. There was no trace of Robuchon, of
the Indian woman, or of the dog. On a tree was nailed a
paper, but the written message had been washed by the rain
and bleached by the sun till it was illegible. Robuchon's
last message can never be known.

The relief party divided into two companies for the
journey back — one section of twelve, the other of eight men.
The larger party arrived in the rubber district six weeks
later. The smaller party, with the three blacks, was lost
in the bush. Five months and a half afterwards five sur-
vivors attained safety. The story of their misery is a
chapter in the history of Amazonian travel that may never
be written.

Two and a half years afterwards I was returning from a
disappointing trip to the Karahone country. There were
persistent rumours that Robuchon was held a prisoner by
the Indians north of the Japura. I determined to see if
any evidence could be found to settle his fate. I had in my
party one of the negroes who had accompanied the French
explorer. We journeyed overland southward through the
Muenane-Resigero country till we reached the Kahuinari,
thence by canoe to the Japura River. The Japura at this
point is about a rifle-shot in width — 2500 to 3000 yards
across. Some three miles below this point on the right
bank, a little way back from the river, was a small clearing.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 9

In it were three poles marking the site of a deserted shelter.
John Brown, my servant and formerly Robuchon's, said it
was the last camp of Eugene Robuchon.

We made camp in the clearing. A little way inland I
found an abandoned Indian house, but all indications
pointed to its having been deserted many years before.
Half buried in the clearing I discovered eight broken photo-
graph plates in a packet, and the eye-piece of a sextant.
Other evidence of civilised occupation there was none. At
some little distance my Indians detected traces of a path,
and though to me it seemed only an old animal track, they
maintained it was a man-made road. Cutting along the
line of this path, at the end of a hard day's work we emerged
upon a second clearing and the ruins of a shelter. After
careful searching we unearthed a rusty and much-hacked
machete or trade knife. There our discoveries ended. The
path went no farther.

We encountered no Indians in our search. On further
investigation it appeared that there are none in the vicinity,
and the nearest to the deserted camp on the south of the
river are the Boro living on the Pama River, forty or fifty
mules away.

Believing that the most probable route of escape was
down the Japura, I journeyed slowly eastward almost to
the mouth of the Apaporis. We then turned and came
back, searching the right bank. Throughout this time we
found no Indians and no signs of Indians. On the bank,
about a mile and a half below Robuchon's last camp,
we found the remains of a broken and battered raft. It
had evidently been carried down in full river, and left
stranded on the fall of the waters. Brown recognised the
wreck as that of the raft which the Frenchman's party had
built after the loss of the canoe. But it afforded no clue.

Much as I should have liked at this time to pursue my
investigations among the Indians of the left, or north, bank
of the river, I had perforce to give up further progress for
the time being on account of the mutinous hostility of my
boys. Nothing would persuade them that they would not
be eaten up if they crossed the great river at this point.

10 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Foiled, therefore, in my attempts to learn anything on
the scene of Robuchon's disappearance, I determined to
prosecute inquiries among the Boro scattered about the
peninsula bounded by the Pama, the Kahuinari, and the
Japura. But here also no amount of examination could
ehcit any information as to the explorer, the woman, or the
dog. I was particularly impressed by the fact that the
existence of the Great Dane — an object of awe to the Indians
— ^had left no legend among the natives. Robuchon himself
wrote of his hound : ** My dog, as always, entered the house
first. The great size of Othello, his flashing teeth, and
close inspection of strangers, his blood-shot eyes and bristling
hair invariably inspired fear and respect among the Indians."
Had such an animal fallen into the hands of the Boro, I feel
certain its fame would have outlived that of any chance
European who might have become their prisoner, how-
ever much they desired to conceal their participation in
his murder. My own Boro boys could find no record
among their compatriots of the presence of Othello or his
master.

After this we proceeded in a northerly direction, and,
crossing the Japura, visited the Boro tribe located on the
north bank of the river, between the Wama and the Ira
tributaries. The chief of this tribe had married a Menimehe
woman who, curiously enough, remained on terms of friend-
ship with her parent tribe. The chief informed me that in
the Long, Long Before — from reference to the size of his son
at the time, I calculated about three years previously —
the Menimehe had captured a white man with face hairy
as a monkey's. As Robuchon was wearing a beard at the
time of his disappearance this seemed to present a clue, but
as the Menimehe refused to confirm the statement, and
there was no mention of the woman or of the dog, it added
but little to the evidence of his fate.

The testimony was further weakened by the knowledge
that about that time either the Menimehe or the Yahuna
destroyed a Colombian settlement near the mouth of the
Apaporis River, and made prisoners of white men. What-
ever the truth of the bearded white man, there was certainly

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS ii

no memory remaining of the Indian woman nor of Othello,
the Great Dane.

On my return to the Rubber Belt I learned that Robuchon
had been lost on a previous expedition for a considerable
period, and had lived during that time with Indians.
Although this had occurred in the regions south of the
Amazon on the Peru-Brazil-Bolivian frontier, somewhere
in the neighbourhood of the Acre River, the general haziness
of natives with respect to place and time may have accounted
for the rumours of captivity among the semi-civilised Indians
of the Rubber Belt, which set me on a fruitless search
among the Indians of the Kahuinari-Japura.

To sum up the evidence with respect to the fate of
Robuchon, it seems to me that he did not die of starvation
at the mouth of the Kahuinari, because a certain amount of
food-stuff was found by the first Relief Expedition at the
site of the camp, but no signs of human remains. The
illegible message nailed to the tree suggests that he vacated
the spot and endeavoured to leave information as to his
route for those who might come to his relief.

Robuchon had five courses open to him once he decided
on abandoning the camp :

1 . He could retrace his steps up the J apura. With respect
to this means of escape, I consider it extremely improbable
that he would attempt to return against stream over the
route which he had already traversed with such difficulty
when aided by the current and the full stre*"gth of his party.

2. He could proceed across the J apura to the country of
the Menimehe. He was unlikely, however, to cross that
river, owing to the bad name enjoyed by the Menimehe. He
could not count upon a relief expedition following him there.

3. He could journey up the Kahuinari. He could hardly
negotiate the difficulties of the upstream journey though
with the inadequate assistance of a single woman. He was
aware of the existence of unfriendly tribes on the banks.
My inquiries among the Pama Boro yielded no trace of his
ever having been seen upon the river. If he had made his
way along the right bank of that river, probably some
evidence of him would have been found by the relief party.

12 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

4. He could have voyaged down the Japura in a canoe
or upon a raft. It would have been very hazardous to have
attempted this alone — practically hopeless. In any event,
if he did make the attempt, he failed to reach the nearest
rubber settlement.

5. There remains one means of escape — ^by an overland
march. It would appear that he adopted this method, but
only without any idea of permanent relief, in desperate search
of temporary assistance. The line of the Kahuinari was the
obvious route for a rescue party. Robuchon, however,
was starving, and the native track promised a path to a
native house and food.

I presume he was located by a band of visiting Indians,
captured, and either murdered or carried away in captivity
to their haunts on the north bank of the Japura. I suggest
the probability of the Indians coming from the north bank
up the Japura, because, so far as I could learn, it was not
the custom of the Pama Boro to journey to the mouth of
the Kahuinari, since they could obtain all they needed from
the river at points more easily and more speedily accessible
to them. There were no Indians resident in the vicinity,
but Indians from across the "Japura made excursions at low
river in search of game or of turtles and their eggs.^

It is upon one of those chance bands that reluctantly I
am forced to lay the responsibility for the death of Eugene
Robuchon in March or April 1906.

This was little enough to add to the ascertained fact of
Robuchon's end, but such as it was it brushed aside some
of the mystery, and proved of interest to the members of
the French Geographical Society and to the relatives of the
lost explorer. 2

After concluding my investigations among the Boro in
the vicinity of the Pama River, I again crossed the Japura
River near the Boro settlement on the north of that river,
and proceeded eastward into the country of the Meniiiiehe.
This country appears more sparsely populated than the

^ Turtle eggs are, curiously enough, not considered foetal.
2 For my share I had the honour to receive, through the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, the thanks of the French Government.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 13

Kahuinari districts, and the manners and customs of these
people vary considerably from the tribes inhabiting the
country to the south.

From the most easterly point I decided to proceed in a
north-westerly direction with a view to striking the upper
waters of the Uaupes River eventually. It was in this
neighbourhood that I developed beriberi ; and, owing to
the swelling of my legs, which were covered with wounds
and sores, I was only able to walk with difficulty, although I
had no pain. My brain was numbed as well as my legs. I
slept at every opportunity, did not want to eat, and seemed
to be under the effect of some delusive narcotic. Yet I
never failed to take all necessary precautions — it was mechani-
cal, a mere habit. Stores were running short, owing to
their bad condition, and my boys and carriers were becoming
mutinous. Game was scarce, and the few native houses we
encountered were for the most part deserted ; what Indians
we came across were surly and sullen, and appeared latently
hostile.

I decided to return, overcome by the argument of Brown
that if I did not do so the boys would go, so we turned back
to the east and south of the original line, and proceeded
overland by way of the Kuhuinari River to the Igara Parana,
and thence to the Kara Parana by river. Arriving at the
latter river at the end of February, and finding that the
steamer for Iquitos would not start for some time, I made
a short trip among the tribes of this river.

By reference to the sketch-map it will be seen that from
the time I left Encanto on my arrival from' Iquitos to my
arrival at the same place, bound for Iquitos, was approxi-
mately seven months.

The difficulties in the way of obtaining information are
such that it is only those who sink for the nonce all inherited
and acquired ideas of superiority, manners, and customs
who can be successful. As a consequence, the stranger will
have to journey with savages, eat with savages, sleep with
savages, from the moment he seeks to penetrate their land.
Watchfulness night and day must be the price of any
desire to understand the native in his home. The field-

14 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

worker must subordinate every previous and personal
conception. Native justice must be his justice. Almost
necessarily native ethics must be his ethics. He is no
missionary seeking to convert those he meets to ideas
of his own ; rather is he a learner, an inquirer, eager to
understand the thoughts that inspire them, to analyse the
beliefs they themselves have gathered. Then there is no
common medium of language. Sometimes a native speaking
a tongue with which the traveller has a passing acquaintance
can make himself understood in another tribal language
whereof the white man is blankly ignorant, and then some
approximation of the truth sought to be conveyed is arrived
at tortuously. For example, I had a Witoto Indian who
understood a little Andoke, and by way of Brown the
Barbadian carried to me much information of these little-
known Indians. John Brown was here invaluable as he
knew Witoto well and Boro to some purpose. But much
of the appended vocabularies had to be gathered by the
crude method of pointing to an object. Having noted the
word phonetically, one had to get it confirmed by trial.

Travelling in the bush is a dreary monotony of discomfort
and ever-present danger. There are weary stretches of
inundated country, sweating swamp. You pass with an
unexpected plunge from ankle-deep mire to unbottomed
main stream. The eternal sludge, sludge of travel without
a stone or honest yard of solid ground makes one long for
the lesser strain of more definite dangers or of more obtrusive
horrors. The horror of Amazonian travel is the horror of
the imseen. It is not the presence of unfriendly natives
that wears one down, it is the absence of all sign of human
life. One happens upon an Indian house or settlement,
but it is deserted, empty, in ruins. The natives have
vanished, and it is only the silent message of a poisoned
arrow or a leaf-roofed pitfall that tells of their existence
somewhere in the tangled undergrowth of the neighbourhood.

On the trail one speedily learns the significance of the
phrase " Indian file." Here are none of the advance
guards, flank guards, and rear guards that are needed to
penetrate unfriendly country in other lands. The first man

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 15

hacks a way for those who follow, and the bush is left as a
wall on either side that is as inscrutable to the possible
enemy on the flank as to the advancing party. On account
of such conditions I should say, from my experience of bush
travel in these regions, that the whole party should rarely if
ever exceed twenty-five in number. On this principle it
will be seen that the smaller the quantity of baggage carried
the greater will be the number of rifles available for the
security of the expedition.

The difficulty of an efficient food supply is very great.
Game is always hard to shoot on account of the density of
the bush, and in many parts appears to be non-existent.
Preserved goods in sealed cases, of convenient size for
porterage, should be taken from Europe. My failure to
carry out my original intentions was due more than anything
else to the fact that my supplies were purchased in the
country, and 50 per cent proved unfit for consumption.
The country where supplies must be husbanded has little
enough of food that is appetising to offer. Fish, if plentiful,
are hard to catch for the uninitiated. One hungers for the
occasional tapir or peccary, the joys of monkey-meat, and
an incautious, though unpalatable, parrot, and in the days
of real distress may be glad to fall back on frogs, snakes,
and palm-heart. The real fear of starvation, after perhaps
the ghastly dread of being lost, is the great cause of anxiety
to the traveller in the Amazons.

As for shelter, — a tent is an encumbrance, — an open screen
of rough palm thatch can be erected in a very short time, and
is all that is necessary, although not all that is to be desired.
The shelter is a poor one that does not prevent the dews
and the inevitable rain from chilling one to the bone.

Clothes for the Amazons are not designed with a view to
fashion or appearance. In the past, continental explorers
have introduced some interesting fashions in ducks and
khaki, but travelling through a coimtry where one's life is
passed in a bath of perspiration, their distinction of appear-
ance yields to the simple comfort of the native's nudity.
In search of a compromise, I have found that a thin flannel
suit of pyjamas with the trouser-legs tucked into the socks.

i6 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

and a pair of carpet slippers laced over the instep, best meet
the requirements of the region. Ordinary boots are a posi-
tive danger on account of the narrow and sometimes slippery
tree-trunks over which one clambers uneasily. A small
towel round the neck to wipe away the perspiration is a
great comfort. For head-gear a cloth cap or " smasher "
hat suffices.

A long knife or cutlass must be carried, and, personally,
I invariably carried a revolver, while the gun-bearer should
always be at hand with a rifle or scatter-gun. A blanket,
sleeping-bag, and waterproof sheet of course must be taken,
with the other comforts, medical and hygienic, common to
all expeditions.

The drawings that appear in this volume are either taken
from photographs or from actual trophies and articles in
my possession. The photographs are a record of industry
and patience. Films I found useless in this climate, and
plates alone materialised. It must be remembered, also,
that every time plates have to be changed it is necessary to
build a small house, and double thatch and treble thatch to
prevent the entrance of any light. Even then the experi-
enced do their work at night.

The difficulty of posing and overcoming the objection
of the native subject will be at once realised. Too many
groups have been draped by explorers in the unaccustomed
decencies of camp equipment, though it has become an
essential of the country — climatic and psychological — that
the women walk abroad naked and the men unembarrassed
by more than a loin-cloth.

The maps cannot pretend to be more than the roughest
approximate sketch-maps. When absence of a horizon and
the density of the bush are realised, it will be obvious that
they can be nothing more. It is hoped that they will suffice
to give some idea of the general trend of the country and the
location of the various language-groups.

PLATE II.

CHAPTER II

Topography — Rivers — Floods and rainfall — Climate — Soil — Animal and
vegetable life — Birds — Flowers — Forest scenery — Tracks — Bridges —
Insect pests — Reptiles — Silence in the forest — Travelling in the bush
— Depressing effects of the forest — Lost in the forest — Starvation.

Although the Amazons have been known to Europe for
fully four hundred years, exploration has been confined
almost entirely to the main river and its great tributaries.
Little addition has been made to the information possessed
by Sir Walter Raleigh in the three hundred years that
have elapsed since his death. The rivers certainly are
known and charted, yet the land beyond their banks is
almost as much a land of mystery in the twentieth century
as it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It is possible to
spend a lifetime in navigating the Amazon,^ and to know
nothing more of its 2,722,000 square miles of basin than can
be peered at through the curtain of vegetation which drapes
the main streams. Behind that veil lies the fascination of
Amazonian travel.

We are not here concerned with the scanty records
history offers of these vast regions, nor, for our immediate
purposes, is it needful to inquire into the conditions and
features of the Amazon watershed as a whole, except in so
far as they differ from or resemble those of my field of
exploration, the tracts between the middle Issa and Japura
Rivers, and in their vicinity. Roughly speaking, this lies
in that debatable land where the frontiers of Brazil meet
those of Peru, Colombia, and — perhaps — Ecuador, a country

^ Steamers have been on the Amazon since 1853, and navigation is
continuous throughout the year (cf. Brazilian Y ear-Book).

17 C

1 8 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

claimed in part by the three latter, but administered by
none. Here the dead level of the lower Amazonian plains
imperceptibly acquires a more decided tilt, the trend of
the land from the great Andean water-parting on the west
and north-west being south-east to the mighty river on
the south, consequently these north-western affluents of the
Amazon flow in more or less parallel lines from the north-
west to the south-east. It is the rivers that dominate this
country, the mountains, those primal determinants, are
only distant influences, snow-topped mysteries but dimly
imagined on the far horizon from some upstanding outcrop,
a savannah where momentarily a perspective may be gained
over and beyond the illimitable forest.^

On the south of the tracks here dealt with the Amazon
slowly sweeps its muddy yellow waters, 500,000 cubic feet
per second, towards the ocean. On the north the Uaupes
River flows to join the Rio Negro. Between the Uaupes
and the Amazon the Rio Caqueta, or Japura River, runs
south-east, due east, and south to the main stream, and
almost parallel with it the Putumayo, or Issa, gathers the
waters of the Kara Parana and the Igara Parana, both
on its northern, that is to say its left bank, and joins
the Amazon where the main river turns sharply south
471 miles below Iquitos. West again, the Napo drains
down to join the great water-way 2300 miles from the
sea. Of the Napo much has been written since Orellano
sailed down it from Peru, homeward bound to Spain in
152 1, and it may be left outside the bounds of our
inquiry. With the Issa and Japura we must deal in some
detail, but of the Uaupes and Rio Negro a few words will
suffice.

Rapids and cataracts bar the navigation of the Uaupes,
the chief tributary if not, as some would have it, the main
stream of the Negro, until it is, according to Wallace,
" perhaps unsurpassed for the difficulties and dangers of
its navigation." ^

^ I never saw the Andes actually from these districts, but the suggestion
is always there, they are seen in the mind's eye ; an ultimate, if invisible,
limit to what would otherwise seem more than iUimitable.

* Wallace, p. 246.

PLATE HI.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 19

Wallace estimated the country to be not more than
1000 feet above sea-level. I should judge it to be con-
siderably less, by the trend of the country to the south of
it. But even here I may be mistaken, as my aneroid was
useless, for undiscovered reasons, and my opinion is based
simply on the force of the currents of the rivers, the number
and depth of the rapids, and the distances to the main
river and thence to the sea. The height above sea-level
cannot be great, for the tides are felt at Obydos, more
than half-way from the ocean to the mouth of the Rio
Negro, and there is no abrupt rise from the Obydos levels ;
indeed the slope of the land is so slight that in the middle
reaches of the main river during wet seasons the floods
spread for twenty miles, and there is no visible current.

The Uaupes, though lighter than the majority of southern
tributaries of the Negro, is what is known as a black water
river, while most of the rivers flowing in on the northern
bank are white water rivers. This peculiarity, which may
be as marked as the difference between ink and milk, is due
apparently to the variety of soil in the country drained by
the rivers. The chief tributaries of the Uaupes, the Itiya
and the Uniya, are both white water streams. Spruce
notes that fish are scarcer in black than in white water
streams, 1 and attributes it to the absence of vegetation.
This may be true in part of the Negro, but it is not true,
I think, of other rivers. Certainly these have some sort of
fish, for I have seen them rise. One species is known to
feed on a variety of laurel berry very plentiful on some of
the river-banks.

The Rio Negro itself, the waters of which are dead black,
is navigable for more than a third of its course to vessels
of a 4 feet draught even in the dry season, and communica-
tion is possible from its upper waters with the great northern
artery of the Orinoco, through the Casiquiari, the most
important of the natural canals that abound throughout
the Amazon regions.

The Issa, or Putumayo — the Peruvian name is perhaps
better known than the Brazilian, the true geographical

^ Spruce, ii. 379-380.

20 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

one — is the first tributary of importance to join the Amazon
after it has entered BraziHan territory. Of its 1028 miles
only 93, according to the Brazilian Y ear-Book, are not
navigable by steamers. This exceeds the truth, for there
is practically no communication with Colombia or Ecuador
by this route, as the statement would imply. In the upper
reaches of the Issa rock and shingle are to be found, while
300 miles down stream hardly a stone is to be seen. The
water is very muddy, and the current variable as the
depth. Now it will be a swirling storm-fed torrent, the
turbid water burdened with a wild flotsam of forest trees
and matted vegetation, cutting into the soft layers of
vegetable mould that form its banks, and rise above it as
much as 25 feet in places ; anon it is a sluggish stream
that spreads oilily nowhither, with scarce a ripple over the
deep alluvial deposits of its bed. This river is at its
lowest in February and March. At its juncture with the
Amazon looking upstream from the main water-way, the
Issa is the more imposing of the two, for its course lies
wide and fully exposed, while the Amazon bends sharply,
and gives the impression that it and not its affluent is the
tributary stream. Robuchon calculated that its breadth
there was 600 metres, the depth 8, and the current 2J
miles an hour. He states very truly that landslides often
occur on the banks of these rivers, and that such destruction
of the bank, together with the quick rise and fall of the
streams, may so alter the appearance of any stretch as to
render it quite unrecognisable, even within a few hours.
Special mention is made by him of the Papunya River, that
enters on the left bank of the Issa. Forty miles from the
Papunya is the Parana Miri,^ a river with very black water
and a large group of islands at its mouth. Many of the
islands in these rivers are not stationary, they are floating
masses of soil and vegetation, torn away from the banks
when the river is in spate. They may be as much as a

^ Robuchon's estimate of distances is 471 geographical miles from
Iquitos to the mouth of the Issa ; thence to the Cotuhe, which he places at
2° 53' 12" S. and 69° 41' 10" W., 150 geographical miles. From the Cotuhe
to the Igara Parana, 252 miles, a total distance of 873 geographical miles
from Iquitos to the Igara Parana.

PLATE IV.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 21

hundred yards from bank to bank, and birds are to be found
living upon them.

The Igara Parana runs into the Issa where that river
makes a horse-shoe bend/ the junction being on the inner
side of the horse-shoe. The breadth of the stream at its
mouth is 161 metres. The water is clearer than that of
the Issa, and the current slower, never more than 3 miles
an hour. Some 220 miles upstream there is an important
waterfall, known as La Chorrera, or the Big Falls. The
Igara Parana becomes vary narrow and most tortuous as
it nears them, and is only 30 metres wide at its exit from
Big Falls Bay. This is a huge pool almost as wide as
it is long, with a narrow exit at one end, and a succession
of cascades at the other. These falls are impassable in boats,
and traffic with the upper river can only be carried on by
land portage. Much debris of rocks and river-borne tree-
trunks obstructs the narrow passage above the falls, which
are given by Robuchon as having a total length of 120
metres and a width of 18 metres. The waters descend over
a series of wide rocky steps, worn fiat and smooth by
the ceaseless friction. Masses of stone line the right bank,
and rise perpendicularly from the water. This is the only
part of the country where I have seen rocks and stones
in any quantity.

The upper reaches of the river are distinctly more pictur-
esque than its lower waters. The almost level banks, with
their monotonous succession of forest trees, grow gradually
steeper, till the sandstone cliffs rise like a fortification
above the fringe of vegetation that encroaches on the high-
water mark. Presently the river winds in and out between
shelving hills, tree-clad to the very margin of the water.
Between the Igara Parana and the Kara Parana the country
is a perfect switchback of hills and ridges, with a stream in
every gully. The steepness of these valleys, with a pitch
perhaps of 25° or 30°, does not permit the surface water to
lodge and form swamp or morass, in contrast to the water-
logged plains of the lower rivers. Immediately on the left
bank of the Igara Parana, and in the vicinity of the Big

^ P buchon gives latitude i° 43' 9* S., longitude 71" 53' 36* W.

22 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Falls, the country continues to be hilly, but to the north-
east it is more open, and the bush is less obstructive, though
its density varies immensely. Similar diversified scenery
is to be found on the upper waters of the Japura.

The Kahuanari, a considerable tributary on the south
bank of the Japura, drains the divide that intervenes be-
tween that river and the Igara Parana. It is subject to
sudden floods, which wash down large quantities of forest
debris. I have seen it rise twenty feet in a day, and
afterwards subside as quickly.

The floods are not to be wondered at when the tremend-
ous rainfall of these regions is considered. The question is
never if it will rain, but when and for how long it will be
fine. Rain is certain in a land which has but a few days
clear of it in every twelve months. Five days, a fortnight,
that, all told, is the extent of dry weather to be looked for
in this country. The dry season is but a name. It is dry
only in comparison with the wetter months from March to
August. The upper valley of the Amazon has a three-day
winter at our midsummer — June 24, 25, 26 — so it is said,
and certainly I noted a very decided drop in the temperature
of these days in 1908. Snow is unknown, and hail not
common. Despite the daily rain the turquoise blue of the
sky is seldom long hidden, though from March to June
leaden skies portend rain, and seldom fail to make good
their portent. During the dry season the rain if it be
frequent is never continuous. Almost every day, between
three and four in the afternoon and two and five in the
morning, heavy clouds will roll up, a preliminary breeze
rustle through the leaves, shake the trees, and increase
till suddenly there comes a deluge of big drops. Such
storms last but half an hour, yet the rain will soak through
everything, and the wet bushes drench the passer-by for
hours afterwards. Nothing is ever really dry, things are
in a constant state of saturation, and it is possible at
all times to wring moisture out of any of one's belongings.
So great and incessant is the evaporation that at night the
dew is as heavy as rain, while the marshy low-lying lands
and the rivers are shrouded by mist both morning and

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 23

evening. With such humid air lichens and Hepaticae
flourish on all the tree-trunks, though I have never seen
them, as described by Spruce, covering the very leaves of
the trees. ^

Electric disturbances are numerous, and a sharp and
sudden thunder-shower often occurs about three in the
afternoon, or in the night, though rain at night without
thunder is common. These storms come up in the dry
season especially, and the worst storms may be expected
in February, at the breaking of the dry weather. Some-
times the electric storm will consist of an uninterrupted
display of lightning with little or no thunder, and the
sizzle of light makes the landscape appear as in a cine-
matograph picture. This continued on one occasion all
through the night, and from the amount of interest the
Indians evinced I judged it to be an unusual occurrence.

It is always possible to tell when rain will come because
of the preliminary breeze, hardly felt below the tree-tops,
followed by a dead calm that precedes the downpour.
The prevailing wind for nine months of the year will be
from the east or south-east, from June to August it will be
north and north-west. In January the prevailing wind is
from the Atlantic, north-east, veering to south-west ; in
July from the Pacific, south-west, round to north-east.
Fitful and uncertain local whirlwinds will, without warning,
swoop down on the clearings round the houses, play havoc
in forest and plantation, uproot trees, and destroy habita-
tions.

In spite of the continual rain, of the imi versa! humidity,
the climate is not unhealthy. The heat, though a damp
heat, is never excessive, the enormously great evaporation
brings in a succession of fresh breezes to moderate the
temperature ; ^ and so, despite apparently trying conditions,

* spruce, i. 7, ii. 100.

^ September to January is the hottest portion of the year, the heat
being at its worst in December. 90° would be extreme heat, and 70° the
lowest the mercury would probably reach ; the average being from 75° to
85°. Robuchon is responsible for the statement that the temperature at
the mouth of the Cotuhe in September was 43° Cent, in the shade, but
that after a brisk shower it fell to 31°. The water of the Amazon has a
temperature of 8 1 ° ; the J apura is a warmer river and reaches 85 ° Wallace

24 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the climate is not injurious. The low watersheds between
the large rivers appear to be quite healthy, and if there be
fever its prevalence varies locally to an extraordinary
degree. It has been observed that where the soil is first
turned up fever not infrequently follows, a fact noted in
other parts of the world, and by no means a condition
peculiar to the Amazons.

The soil of the vast Amazonian basin is mainly the
alluvial deposit of decomposed vegetable life for centuries
past. This sea of Pampean mud stretches from the ocean
marshes up to the very heels of the mountains that stand
outpost to hold the southern continent from the Pacific.
Black and rich it lies in layer after layer twenty, thirty, forty
feet beneath the great pall of vegetation that flourishes
above during its little day, to die and drop for successive
generations of arboreal life to thrive upon in their turn.
And in all this vastness is never a stone. Vegetable mould
and water-borne mud, but stone does not exist for thousands
upon thousands of miles. Only in the upper waters of the
Amazonian system are rock formations reached ; in the
particular district under consideration nothing is to be
found harder than a soft, friable sandstone. On parts of
the Issa, as on the Napo, the deep banks show strata of
shingle, with perhaps red or white clay, that alternate with
the dark humus and decaying wood.

It is the ceaseless activity of all vegetable life that
renders these regions fit for human habitation at all. There
is no period, as with us, of bare branches overhead and
decaying matter below. Decomposition is there, but for
every dead leaf a virent successor is ready to absorb the
gases engendered by decay. The soil may be water-
logged, but evaporation, combined with the constant rain,
the frequent inundations, and the endless operations of an
immeasurable insect world, militate against stagnation.

gives the mean temperature of the Rio Negro water in September — that
is, during the hot season — as 86°, and the corresponding temperature of
the air as from 76° to 92 •s*'. The water, he considers, is probably never
less than 80* at any time. The temperature of the Uaupes has been noted
as invariably 76° at three to six feet below the surface {Geo. Journ., 1910,
p. 683).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 25

Dank it may be, but there is no iridescent scum upon the
water, no foetid smells to warn of lurking poisons. These
natural danger-signals are unneeded, for the poisons are
self -destructive. Processes of corruption are coexistent
with those of purification. So extraordinary is this that I
never hesitated to drink any water, nor is any evil resultant
from water- drinking within my knowledge.

In this struggle it is the weak who go under, the feeble
who support the strong. This holds good for vegetable and
animal kingdom alike, and even with man there is no place
for the helpless. Those who fail by the way, who cannot
fulfil their functions in the toiling world, and have ceased to
be of practical utility, must make way for the more capable.
Altruism is not bred of the forest, it is a virtue bom in cities.
Here it would be suicide. The growing leaf must push off
the fading leaf, or the latter will stunt and imperil its growth.
In fact it does so, and growth is thus continual. There are
no seasons to correspond with our spring nor with our fall
of the leaf. From the lower Amazon's maze of water-ways
up to the foothills of the western mountains reigns perpetual
summer ; the same leafy veil hides the mysteries of the great
expanse, eternally dying, eternally renewed.

As one passes onwards, however, nearer where the great
cloud-banks gather over the mountain giants of the west, a
perceptible change is to be noted, the scenery of the upper
Amazon differs in certain essential particulars. It is not
only that the great river thoroughfare, first spread on either
side beyond the farthest horizon,^ becomes a thin black line
that grows nearer and deeper. Other features besides the
river-surface contract. The majestic forest trees give way
to timber not so towering. Plant life is not less prolific, but
it is on a smaller scale. The bush has the air of being
yoimger. It suggests that it has been dwarfed by perpetual
inundations. Nor is the stunted growth limited to the
vegetable world ; the animals themselves, as if Nature
insisted that all be in keeping, are on a lesser scale than their
congeners of the eastern plains. No alligators of immense
size lurk in the upper waters, even the fish and the turtles

* The Amazon at its mouth is 158 miles across from bank to bank.

26 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

are smaller, as though their inches were limited in proportion
to the streams.

It is not easy to convey any true notion of the scenery
of the Montafia, the vast forest regions spreading eastwards,
down from the lower Andean slopes. Here and there the
dense forest gives place to an open savannah, an outcrop
of rock with but a shallow stratum of soil. These have none
of the deep vegetable mould of the lower-lying forests, and
the poorer and thinner soil harbours flora of many totally
distinct varieties. Often the great fan leaves of the Aeta are
matted into a dense roof over the black swamp of the valleys.
Sometimes these water-loving palms are seen by the river-
side, interlopers in the fringe of fern and thickets of feathery
bamboo ; or, again, they will grow in a regular belt with
little or no other vegetation.

Life is more evident on the rivers than in the forest.
Fish are there in plenty — eighteen hundred species are
known in the Amazonian waters. Birds, often conspicuous
by their apparent absence in the bush, flock on the sand-
banks and marshes of the bank. Herons and ducks abound.
Egrets haunt the sandy spits that rise from the water, and
in the marshy swamps numbers of these beautiful creatures
may commonly be seen hunting for the tiny fish, animals,
and insects on which they feed. Another enemy of the
small denizens of the stream and marsh is the kingfisher.
More than one variety abound on all the Amazon water-ways,
but none of them can compare with the English bird in
brilliancy of colour. Probably this is an instance of pro-
tective colouring, one of Nature's methods of defence, for
on these dark waters the gorgeous blue of our Alcedo ispida
would be even more conspicuous than it is on our clearer
streams.

One pictures this tropical garden, this paradise of the
naturalist, as a blaze of gorgeous colour, a profusion of
exquisite forms. But, in proportion to one's imaginative
anticipation, I have never seen such a monotonous, flower-
less wilderness as this bush appears. Still there are flowers,
and flowers of showy colouring, the pinks and yellows of the
bignonias, the white and crimson of the chocolate-tree, the

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 27

crimson of the hibiscus, the scariet blaze of the passion-flower,
the snowy beauty of the inga ; all these and a thousand
more are there, with the rarest blue and all the myriad
shades of mauve and orange, yellow, pink, brown, violet
of uncounted orchids. But orchids, though common, grow
at the very top of the trees, and unless they are searched
for they are not seen, except such varieties as are found on
the savannahs.

The whole is on a scale so gigantic, the immense forest,
the great rivers, that details are lost in the vast expanse,
and the total effect is one of absolute sameness. Yet the
individual variety is enormous. Though uniform in the
mass, twenty -two thousand species of plants have been
differentiated ; thousands more remain undescribed. Only
a botanist could attempt to deal with these even super-
ficially. The uninitiated, like myself, can but look and
wonder.

Many of the units of this mighty aggregate are of a sur-
passing loveliness ; flowers unequalled for beauty, birds and
insects that are living jewels, outrivalling inanimate gems.
Such palms and ferns as would be rare treasures in a Kew
Gardens hothouse riot unheeded in tangled profusion above
the dark marshy soil, over a screen of parasites and epiphytes.
Forest giants, those immense monarchs of the woods Cali-
fomian advertisements depict for the edification of the
populace, are not there ; certainly they are never to be
found in the Montana. Nor, perhaps, in consequence of
the lower growth, is there that intense gloom mentioned by
writers on more easterly districts. The idea that you look
up but can never see the sky is fiction to me. The foliage is
certainly too dense for the sunlight to penetrate down to
the damp soil and matted underbush, but patches of the sky
are always more or less visible through the interlocked
branches overhead. Light and air are to be had freely
only on the tree-tops, and it is there that birds, insects, and
flowers mass their glories out of human ken. Even the
animals are climbers, and most of them spend more than
half of their existence on the trees.

There are no long dark avenues beneath this leafy canopy

28 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

that hides all the life and colour of the forest world from
the traveller, painfully cutting his path through the intricate
confusion of roots and creepers below. These parasitic
creepers are of many kinds, rooting down to the dark soil,
intertwining with themselves, pushing boldly to the tree-
tops, strong as withes, in wild festoons, knotted, tangled,
of every thickness from a giant cable to a narrow thread.
I have seen parasite on parasite. They loop from tree to
tree, bind the underwood into impenetrable thickets, and
trail over the track- way, ready to strangle or trip the heedless
passer-by. But track-way is a misnomer. The only
thoroughfares, where water is as abundant as dry land, are
the water-ways. The bed of a stream is the only track. No
other line of communication is intelligible to the Indian.
Even in the vicinity of civilised centres, hundreds of miles
away from these wild fastnesses of Nature, the exuberant
vegetation rapidly encroaches upon a roadway. Paths in
the forest there are none. A forest track consists in following
the line of least resistance. If this should be stopped by any
obstacle, a fallen tree, a sudden inundation, it would never
be removed or surmounted. There is no choice but to
climb over or go round. The ordinary Indian wayfarer
would go round ; and so the road deviates increasingly ;
it becomes inconceivably twisted, until the actual ground
covered is enormous compared with the distance from
point to point.

Where a stream has to be crossed there is rarely any
bridge more stable than a small tree cut down and thrown
across just when and where it may be wanted. Frequently
such impromptu bridges are under water. They are in-
variably of the slightest ; a branch no thicker than a man's
hand suffices to span a deep chasm, and over this an Indian
will pass more imconcemedly than an Englishman over
London Bridge. The worst penance of all in forest joumey-
ings is to cross a river or a gully full of great fallen trees,
on such flimsy foothold. The drop at times may be 40 to
50 feet, and there will be but the one tree across without
any attempt at a hand-rail to steady the traveller. Nor
can you grasp an Indian's shoulder for aid in the perilous

PLATE V.

THK BULGE-STEMMED PALM, IRIARTREA VENTICOSA,
SHOWING PORTION OF LEAF AND FRUIT

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 29

transit, for to do so is to lose once for all every trace of
prestige and authority. The man who cannot get over a
river unaided, the man who is not man enough to walk and
must be carried in a hammock, is but a poor creature in the
eyes of the South American Indian. Still it is more than
a test of nerve. In the middle of such a bridge you feel
yourself swajdng, and it is only with a fearful concentration
of will-power and a bitten lip that you arrive safely on the
other side, having leapt the last three feet. In the first
month of forest journeying I bit my lip through time and
again. It is not the torrent below that frightens, it is the
rotten trees in the gully. A fall may possibly be a broken
neck, more probably it would be a broken leg. Of the two
in country of this description a broken neck is preferable.

Where a stream has to be crossed that is too deep to be
forded and cannot be bridged over in this elementary
fashion, there is little difficulty in the construction of a
raft or a temporary canoe. The bulging-stemmed palm
furnishes an almost ready-made one. This palm, Iriartea
ventricosa, is readily known by the peculiar swelling on
the upper part of the trunk. It will attain the height of
100 feet, and the swollen portion is big enough to form
the body of an improvised canoe.

Forest bridges are not the only terrors to confront the
traveller ; lurking dangers are many, and imagination is
but too quick to multiply the risks. Peril from wild beasts
does not loom largely in the picture, though the jaguar is a
savage brute, and the experienced traveller will never sleep
without a weapon at hand in case one of these daring creatures
should venture to attack. But of animals more anon.
There is one danger by no means imaginary, the danger of
falling trees. A sudden crack, startlingly noisy in the all-
pervading stillness, will give warning of a fall, but there is
nothing to guide to safety. It may be the nearest tree that
is coming down, or one at some distance ; yet the deceptive
noise will not determine which may be the doomed one,
beyond the fact that a palm gives the sharpest crack.
Indians when they hear such a sound are invariably fright-
ened, and often will run backwards and forwards in terrified

30 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

uncertainty, to try and discover whence came the danger
signal.

Then there are plants that injure more directly. One
palm, an Astrocaryum, has spines six inches in length up its
stem. These spines, black in colour, hard, unbreakable,
fall in the bush and spike the foot of the unfortunate who
may tread on them. On the palm-stem itself they will
wound the unwary hand incautiously or involrmtarily thrust
in the thicket. Many of the climbing plants have thorns or
hook-like prickles, and perhaps the worst are the many kinds
of twining river-side palms, whose barbed leaves will tear
both flesh and clothing.^ But trying as these vegetable
torments may be, they are outclassed in the eyes of the tyro
by the more active evil of perils from snakes and insects.
Creeping through dense bush is an agony at first. Poisonous
reptiles may lie concealed all about one, virulent insects
surround in their myriads. If imagination has painted a
floral paradise it has also run riot over a profusion of deadly
snakes, an uninterrupted purgatory from creeping things
innumerable, and winged pests before which the plague of
flies in ancient Egypt sinks to insignificance. And there
is some excuse for imagination if it be fed on travellers'
tales. As a matter of fact, if these were true life would in
all verity be insupportable. But the fear of snakes passes
in two weeks, never to return, and mercifully the most
pestilent creatures exist only in limited spheres, and seldom
or never in the same. Places that are troubled with the
pium will be found free of mosquitoes at night ; in a belt of
country where the mosquito abounds the pium will be
absent, and in any case the two are never active together.
The pium, a most vile little fly, comes out at sunrise. It is
an intolerable pest, will attack any exposed part of the
body, and draws blood every time. The traveller is forced,
when journeying through a pium-infested country, to don
guarded boots, gauntlets, and a veil. It is impossible to
eat, drink, or smoke, till sunset puts a period to the troubling.
Fortunately, piums are only found within a few hundred
yards of the rivers. This is also the case as a rule with

1 This I take to be the Yacitara mentioned by Spruce, i. 30.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 31

mosquitoes. There is a bad belt of pium country on the
Issa, at the BraziHan frontier. It takes two days to get
through on a steamer, and during the forty-eight hours Hfe
is a long-drawn torture. But once through you are rid of
them. Robuchon noted that the Culex mosquito disappears
on entering this river : but there are others ; one, a kind of
Tahano in miniature, is called the Maringunios. I found
piums on the Kahuanari at low river, but a light breeze would
suffice to sweep them away, and both mosquitoes and piums
are practically non-existent in the middle Issa-Japura
valley, though mosquitoes are found in certain parts of
tracts of flatter country, but are not bad enough to make
a net a necessary adjunct for comfort. There is also a tiny
sand-fly that occasionally appears at sunset, when the river
is low, and though minute in size, causes a very painful
wound. It is known in Brazil as the Maruim,

A most annoying little insect that is very common in
the bush is a kind of harvest bug. This almost invisible
** red tick " must not be confused with another parasite that
is only obtained from contact with Indians. The forest
tick lives on the leaves of plants and bushes, and when
shaken off creeps everywhere, and will burrow under the
skin, which gives rise to maddening irritation.

Wasps and wild bees — the bee of these regions is a waspish
creature — are frequently a nuisance. Often in a forest path
I have come upon a huge black overhanging nest pendant
from a tree. It looks like a tarred lobster-pot full of black
pitch, and it is necessary to rush past to avoid the stings of
the easily-roused inhabitants. Some of the wasps are
exceedingly handsome fellows, noticeable even among
Amazonian winged beauties, unsurpassed in any other
land for gorgeous colouring. Among other fine insects
of the Montana are the huge Morphos, a dazzling blue
butterfly many sizes bigger than a humming-bird ; dragon-
flies with iridescent wings and jewelled bodies, fireflies and
glow-worms with their living lights, so brilliant that I have
often in a moment of forgetfulness mistaken them for
distant lights from some human dwelling-place. But the
butterflies, the most resplendent of all, frequently illustrate

32 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the proverb that beauty is but skin deep. Exquisitely
graceful in flight, marvellous in subtle colourings, I have
found them to be the dirtiest possible feeders. The sight
of one now fills me with repugnance, for it calls to mind
pictures of these so apparently dainty and aerial beings
fluttering about some mass of oflal, actually eating manure. ^
They will congregate in thousands round a spot of blood, so
absolutely fearless that it is not possible to drive them
away. They will actually smother the kill during the
disembowelling process after hunting. The contrast of their
ethereal loveliness and their gross habits is revolting —
Psyche and putrid filth, an inconceivably horrible combina-
tion.

Butterflies and moths exist in great numbers and varieties.
The most ordinary kind is a large bright sky-blue ; other
common ones are tiger-marked and yellow, like our sulphur
butterfly but larger. Most of them are strong fliers. If
the perfect insects themselves inflict no injury, the same
cannot always be said of them in the caterpillar stage, for
very many have hair that stings quite painfully.

Ants are the greatest curse. They are everywhere, of
all kinds, of varied colours, and almost invariable viciousness.
They drop from the overhanging foliage. They may come
singly or in battalions — army corps rather. The traveller
pushing through the thicket will knock them off the bushes,
and they will proceed to crawl down the neck or up the
sleeves. They swarm over the bare feet. And then they
sting. The worst kind is a small stinging ant not more than
the size of a pin's head. In many places the earth is broken
up and transformed into irregular heaps, the late habitations
of some gregarious ant, such as the Ecodema cophelotos,
or it may be built into cones to the height of 4 or 5 feet
by the termites. It needs but short experience of the
bush to endorse very heartily Spruce's comment that they
*' deserve to be considered the actual owners of the Amazon

^ Wallace noted a butterfly frequenting " the dung of some carnivorous
animal " in Malacca, and remarks that many tropical butterflies suck
liquid from muddy places, " and are generally so intent upon their meal
that they can be easily approached and captured " (Wallace, The Malay
Archipelago, pp. 29, 114).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 33

valley." ^ On more than one occasion stinging ants drove
me from dry land to water. In inundated country these
insects forced me to take refuge off the higher points of land,
which, turned into temporary islands, form the natural
resting-place for the traveller exhausted by the wading, the
swimming, and the stumbling through the unseen under-
growth. Unfortunately the ants, too, are driven to take
the same refuge. The traveller may find that choice lies
between torture on land or again seeking the comparative
peace of the water in perhaps an exhausted condition.
Happily ants, like the pium, keep in belts, and of these it can
only be said that discreet avoidance is better than valour.

With regard to the reptiles, though these aboimd, they
seek rather to avoid than to court notice, and are by no
means the danger to life that the ignorant imagine. Natur-
ally the naked Indian is more exposed to any peril there
may be than the better protected white man, and if a snake
be trodden on it will promptly turn and bite the unshod
foot of the aggressor. But no snake, so far as I have observed,
will attack a human being unmolested, not even the boa
constrictor ; nor would the anaconda, the great water snake,
though all Indians are very afraid of it. I do not think that
even the venomous labarria ever bites a man unless first
disturbed.

Alligators in the Issa and the Japura are small, rarely
seen, and never formidable. The dangerous jacare, that
huge monster of the lower rivers, is unknown here. But
of fierce and poisonous fish I shall have somewhat to say
later. Curiously enough, despite the swampy nature of
the ground, I never met with any leeches, though Bates
mentions a red, four-angled species he found to be abundant
in the marshy pools at the juncture of the Japura and
the Amazon. 2 Frogs and toads are the most abundant
reptiles. They exist in thousands and are of all sizes,
though I have never seen any of dimensions that Spruce
speaks of — " as big as a man's head." ^ At night near
any stream huge frogs keep up a constant and fearful
noise, and even at midday, when a silence that may be

^ Spruce, ii. 366. ^ Bates, ii. 262. ^ Spruce, i. 49.

34 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

felt enfolds the tropical woodland, their chorus is only
subdued, not stayed.

This silence of the forest is a very real thing, a quality
that does not lessen by acquaintance. On the contrary it
grows more real and more oppressive. A strange gloom
and a strange stillness hold the bush. They give the im-
pression that there is nothing animate in all the vastness,
no life other than that of the overwhelming, all-triumphant
vegetation. It is possible to journey for days and never
see a human being. A sound, be it but the cracking of a
twig, startles in the forest. Then, suddenly, the vibrant
quiet will be broken by a shrill scream. Some creature has
been done to death. The cry dies to a moan, and the low
murmur that is hardly sound, the drone of the unseen but
abundant life, once more makes up the silence that pulses
tormentingly on ear and brain, till night again wakens the
birds and the beasts of the wild, and the murmur grows
and deepens to the full volume of confused sound made by
the forest's busy life.

At the break of day, and again at the going down of the
sun, the howling monkeys, if they be in the neighbourhood,
startle the echoes with their raucous yelps. Sunrise is,
indeed, the signal for absolute pandemonium. Toucans
start an endless chattering that rises now and again to a
far-reaching scream. The trumpeter birds make extra-
ordinary noises. With them may be joined in a chorus
of discord the macaws and the parrots of the district, and
the chorus is punctuated at night by the mournful cry of a
large night-jar.

But, for the most part, the birds and the beasts go about
their business silently. They seek neither to disturb their
victims nor to advertise their own doings and so attract
those with sinister designs against themselves. In the
bush silence is a better policy than honesty.

Picture all this, and try to understand the bush life in
Amazonia. It will explain much of the unwritten and
unwritable story of the inhabitants of these wilds. For the
traveller the day is easily summarised : the awakening at
sunrise, followed by a bath in the nearest stream, and a

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 35

meal of what was left over-night ; the trail, the worst in the
world ; the slow progress that jars on the nerves ; the
never-ending, impenetrable forest ; the narrow path that
has to be widened ; the stumbles, the falls, the whipping of
the face and arms by innumerable twigs ; the ever-ready
liana that catches the foot of the careless walker ; the sting-
ing ants that shower down on face and neck when a tree is
accidentally shaken ; the greenheart and other rods that
pierce the feet and legs ; the thorns innumerable, and the
fine palm-spines on which a hand is transfixed when put
out to save a fall ; the end of the trek, a bath to get rid
of the litter of mud and vegetable filth ; dinner, of sorts ;
and a hammock under a shelter so poor that it will not pre-
vent the driving and inevitable rain from chilling the sleeper
to the bone. Imagine the state of fatigue to mind and body
when one cries, " Thank God, I have got so far to-day. I
could not repeat to-day's labours. I could not go back
on my own open trail, or go through the same to-morrow."
And so crying one knows that to-morrow and the trail must
come. Even in fancy you will feel the pressure on your
chest, the pressure behind you. It demoraHses utterly.

There is a gruesome depression that is almost physical,
produced by solitude on a small island, when all other land
is out of sight. The bush to me is worse. The oppression
is as of some great weight. A light heart is impossible in
an atmosphere which the sunshine never enlivens, that is
beaten daily back to earth by rain, where the air is heavy
with the fumes of fallen vegetation slowly steaming to
decay. The effect of the impenetrable thickets around, the
stifling of the breath, is all mental, doubtless ; but it must
react physically on the neurotic subject.

This depression, this despondency, may seem incredible
to those who have never experienced anything similar, who
are ignorant of the innate malevolence of the High Woods.
But in truth there is nothing in Nature more cruel than the
unconquered vegetation of a tropical South American
forest. The Amazonian bush brings no consolation. It is
silent, inhospitable, cynical. It has overcome the mastodon
and the megatherium, the prehistoric camel and the rhino-

36 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

ceros. It has reduced its rivals of the animal kingdom to
slimy alligators and unsightly armadilloes, to sloths and
ant-bears. The most powerful tenant of its shades is the
boa constrictor, the most majestic the jaguar. Man is a
very puny feature in the Amazonian cosmos.

The sense of one's insignificance is the first lesson of
travel in the bush. In the beginning the discovery amuses
the adventurer. Later, he resents the implied superiority
of the fixed and nerveless plants which barricade his pro-
gress. In the end, he hates the bush as though it were a
sentient being. Yet the component parts of the bush are
familiar to all at home : we coddle them in our gardens, and
nurse them tenderly in our glass-houses. But in the
Amazons they unite to form a horrible, a most evil-disposed
enemy. They obscure the sun from the earth, condemn one
to existence in a gloomy, stifling half-light. They constrict
the world to a path laboriously hacked through jealous
undergrowth. They stab with hidden snags, and strangle
with deftly poised lianas. In their most hurtful mood they
poison with a touch.^

The Amazonian forest is no glorified botanic garden.
Its units are not intelligently isolated and labelled. There
is but a monotonous tangle of vegetation through which
the traveller cuts his way to daylight and perspective in a
river-channel. One rarely sees a blossom or a fruit. Within
that tangle, however, is the whole varied life of the tropical
jungle. It may be difficult to distinguish specimens through
the superimposed mass of extraneous vegetation ; it may
be impossible to catch a glimpse of a living creature through-
out a day's march j but the flowers are there in their
thousands, and a myriad of eyes have noted each blundering
movement of the wayfarer. It is no part of the philosophy
of the bush to force even the most reckless of animals into
needless publicity.

It is simple for the traveller to pull the canoe to the
bank of one of the upper tributaries of the great river, to
land, to part the screen of bushes, and to pass beyond —

1 One tree is reputed to be so poisonous that no Indian will touch it.
See Maw, p. 394.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 37

into the obscurity of barbarism. It is a simple feat, yet
eventful. A thousand yards away from the safe thorough-
fare of the main stream the explorer is lost, overwhelmed
in the extravagance of vegetation. Denied a pathway,
a landmark, a horizon, or a sky, he has less to guide him
than the castaway on the ocean or the wanderer in the
Sahara. His most definite course can only be from river-
bed to river-bed. To direct him on his way the trees offer
no aid to help him, the forest provides but little sustenance.

Every traveller in the bush lives in the constant dread
of being lost. Desertion, unexpected, unforeseen, is common
with the Indians. They leave without ascertainable cause
at the cost of their pay, at the risk of their lives. In a
watch of the night they depart, and although the country
be swarming with their blood-enemies, they vanish into the
forest and are no more seen.

In time the civilised man, with no other than such bar-
baric companions, turns at the thought of them, is nauseated
by their bestiality, longs for relief from their presence.
Then he wanders away, ever so little a distance into the
bush, to be alone and to think. He happens upon a stream
— that is so simple a by-path, so obvious a guide. He wan-
ders light-footedly up its bed in search of that ego which had
begun to elude him. The surroundings interest him. The
water comforts his feet. The silence casts him back upon
himself. He thinks, computes, and the solitude assists his
introspection. He recovers his perspective, replaces the
comrades of his bush-life in their proper places — the glass-
fronted cupboards of an anthropological museum. His self-
respect regained, he pauses to admire his new-found horizon.

Trees hem him in on every side. A little way up the
stream is a narrow slit of sunlight, a little way down a
narrow canopy of sky. All else is vegetation. The solitude
no longer tempts him, but mocks as he contemplates his
surroundings. Yet to doubt is to be ridiculous. It is all
so simple ; it took so long to come here up the stream ;
the same number of hours or minutes will take him back
again to the spot he marked, and so to the camp.

The difficulties begin with the return journey. He

38 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

questions the hour of leaving the bearers, the rate of march,
the time spent in lazy consideration. One tree is so like
another tree, one river vista but the duplicate of the last.
Reeds, weeds, and bush now offer nothing distinctive ;
their former individuality appears to be lost. The trail
must have been passed. He shouts, diffidently at first,
eventually with hysteria. He fires a rifle, and the bush but
re-echoes the sound. The hundreds of miles of forest on
every side press together, and the signal is shuttlecocked
between. The very echoes seem to him muffled, like the
drums at a soldier's funeral. The traveller is lost.

The realisation is a strange psychological phenomenon.
It forces the self-reliant European on his knees to pray ;
drags him to his feet to blaspheme ; throws him on his face
to weep. This admission may come strangely to the well-
housed British ratepayer. It may sound like a confession
of unfathomable cowardice. It is far easier for the arm-
chair philosopher to imagine the stoicism of the Indians
than to reproduce the neuroticism of his European counter-
part. Things are so different when the conception of the
Amazonian bush is the memory of the tropical houses in
Kew Gardens.

One day I was lost alone. When I realised it I shouted,
then fired half-a-dozen rounds from my rifle, and laughed.
It was the laugh that brought me to my senses — that way
lay madness. The reaction to calm was stupendous. Life
was dependent upon self-control and clarity of judgment.
I counted my rounds, remembered all I had eaten that day,
and settled myself to think. We had crossed a stream, and
my boys had been left quenching their thirst. I took the
lie of the land, and found a path leading downwards. It
must go to water. It did in fact take me to a stream, and
I trudged wearily in the bed of it ; then, after two fruitless
hours of growing despondency, turned and went down,
to find, as darkness was closing in. Brown and his party.
That night I had fever, and talked in my sleep. And John
Brown was lost for five and a half months. Good God !

There is one last experience of the bush — ^starvation.
The man who has not starved can never enter into the

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 39

feelings of his brother who, with blood-shot eyes and shaking
fingers, has groped about the fallen leaves for a lizard or a
frog. I can answer for it that those who have starved
never again may express the sensation. It has become the
memory of a nightmare.

CHAPTER III

The Indian homestead — Building — Site and plan of maloka — Furniture —
Inhabitants of the house — Fire — Daily life — Insect inhabitants — Pets.

Out of the silence and gloom of the forest the traveller will
emerge into the full light of a clearing. Though it is the
site of a tribal headquarters there is no village, no cluster
of huts, except among some of the tribes on the lower
Apaporis. There is but one great house, thatched and
ridge-roofed like a gigantic hay-rick, standing four-square in
the open. This is the home of some three score Indians.^

The immediate signs of their occupancy are but few.
There is hardly any litter cumbering the homestead ; what-
ever of refuse there be is cleared more speedily by the ants
than it would be by the most up-to-date sanitary authority
of London. Back here in the untouched districts, away
from the Rubber Belt and the commerce-bearing rivers,
there are none of the leavings of civilisation : no broken
bottles, no battered tins, no torn and dirty scraps of paper —
indeed if bottle or tin ever found its way to these wilds it
would be esteemed a most rare and valuable treasure.
No village dogs bark their challenge at the stranger's
approach, no domestic fowls clutter away to safety. A
naked child or a startled old woman may scurry into the
saving murk of the maloka,^ otherwise the silence and
solitude appear little less profound than in the forest.

That is the picture as the artist or camera would

^ These tribal houses differ from the communal long-houses of the Fly
Delta, British New Guinea, not only in shape, but in that there are no
platforms and no divisions for each family ; the whole interior is open.
For description of Kiwai and Daudai long-houses see Expedition to Torres
Straits, iv. 112- 117.

^ Ma/oAa = Indian lodge or tribal house (lingoa-geral).
40

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

reproduce it. The details, the essentials, must be sought
within.

First of all characteristics is the fact that nothing makes
for permanence. The house and its contents at the best are
but for temporary use. The possession of a central tribal
house does not presuppose that these Indians remain for

Fig. I.

any length of time in one locality. After about two or
three years the house falls into a state of disrepair, but the
tribesmen will not patch and mend it. They will simply
discard it like all useless things. The women will be loaded
up with the few tribal possessions — ^not forgetting the
inevitable burden of their infants — the house will be burnt,

42 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

and the whole of this grosse famille departs to seek a new
site on which to build another habitation.

Building material is easily come by, and though to
clear the land for agricultural purposes from the virgin
forest entails considerable hard work, it is periodically a
necessary task. However rich it may have been in the
first instance successive crops rob the soil of its fertility, as
the Indian is only too well aware, and fresh ground must
perforce be broken up every few years. Then again, paths
converging on the homestead in time are worn through
the forest undergrowth, dense though it may be, circuitous
though the trail of the Indian is invariably. Secrecy is
security. A track-way is as good as an invitation, a sign-
post, to the enemy. To move becomes a precautionary
measure, even if the food supply be not exhausted — another
reason that makes for unsettled conditions in forest life.

The site chosen is never near a river, for these are the
highways for a possible enemy, and streams for ordinary
purposes abound. Also — but this is an insignificant reason
in comparison with the first — insect pests are not so abundant
at a distance from the river-bank. With an eye to defence
from hostile visitors, the Indian habitation is sedulously
hidden, and the paths that lead to it are concealed also in
every possible way. The track from the river especially
may run more or less directly for, say, a third of a mile ;
then it is absolutely stopped by a fallen tree. No cleared
pathway apparently runs beyond this, but the Indian,
creeping through the thicket by devious ways, eventually
reaches another comparatively cleared track. This will
in turn be stopped in the same fashion, and thence
lead more directly house wards. The river -path may be
broken twice or even three times in little more than
a mile.

At the same time that the ground is cleared on which
the house is to be built, a plot immediately in front is also
cleared for use as a dancing ground. This is customary,
but not invariable, for some tribes are content with the
dancing space inside the house. The outside dancing floor
once cleared is quickly trodden down, and though no special

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

preparation is attempted will soon be baked comparatively
hard in the sun.

The construction of the great house is not complicated,
but the workmanship is dexterous, and will bear the
closest inspection. Four great poles, 20 to 30 feet high,
form the main supports of the roof, which slopes down on
either side tentwise almost to the ground from the central
ridge-pole. More posts and cross-beams support it, and the
whole is most adroitly lashed together. The forest supplies
all the needed material. It is there ready to hand, growing
where the house is to be erected. The straight est tree-

FlG. 2.

trunks provide the posts and cross-beams ; the creeping
lianas serve to splice and bind the framework together ;
Bussu palm-leaves^ make the thatch, which, as the actual
wall is but some three feet in height, is practically roof and
wall in one. The bejucos, or lianas, used to tie the beams
and poles are first soaked in water to render them supple
enough. 2

To make the thatch the Indians slit bamboos and insert

^ Manicaria saccifera (cf. Spmce, i. 56).

* Eugene Andr6 noted that two kinds were commonly used on the
Causa, the mulato, a kind of Aroideae, and the murcielago, which belongs
to the Bignoniaceae family.

44 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the palm-leaves doubled backwards. ^ The strips are then
laid on the framework of the house, one above another, so
that the uppermost strips shall hang half over those
below. They are piled on to a thickness of from a foot to
eighteen inches, and when completed this shingling is
absolutely waterproof. When it ceases to be so the house
will be abandoned. The leaves are not plaited, or inter-
twined in any manner, so the roof consists only of loose
fronds, row upon row, and these have more the appearance
of tobacco plants hung in an open drying-bam than a reed
or straw thatch.

All the native houses are made after much the same
manner. They vary only in unimportant details. The
shape, as a rule, is a rough parallelogram or square with
rounded angles, but on the lower Apaporis the houses are
circular. On the Napo River also they are hemispherical,
but the section of a Witoto or Boro house usually would be
a triangle some 30 feet high, with a 6o-feet base. Witoto
houses sometimes are more circular as to ground-plan,
but always have the pointed roof, not a cone (see Fig. 4).

The house is not always roofed and thatched to the
ground, the last two or three feet occasionally being made
of a closely set palisade, lined with matting or thatch.
This is even more noticeable in a Nonuya house, and a
Makuna house is invariably so fortified and is lighter than
a Boro dwelling. As a general rule it may be noted that
the Issa-Japura houses are not strengthened in this way.
Wallace gives the dimensions of a house at Jaurite as
115 feet long, by 75 broad, and 30 high.^ A Witoto or
a Boro house is usually about 60 to 70 feet in diameter.
In both cases the size depends on the numbers of the
tribe.

^ Several kinds of palm-leaves are used for this purpose, and whichever
was most easily procurable in the district where the house was built would
be used by the tribe. Hardenburg mentions the leaves of the Phytelephas
macfocarpa, the vegetable ivory-tree, as in use among the Witoto, and the
Bactris ciliaia or Chonta palm for the posts and rafters (p. 135). The
leaves of the Bussu palm, Manicaria saccifera, will make a thatch that lasts
for ten or twelve years, by some accounts (cf. Waterton, p. 479).

2 W^allace, p. 341.

PLATE VI.

FLOWERS AND SECTION OF LEAF OF THE BUSSU PALM
THE LEAF IS USED FOR THATCHING

46 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

These houses have no windows, and the entrance is
merely an opening in the palm-thatch eaves of some three
feet by two. This most frequently is closed with a re-
movable section of the thatch, which must be lifted out
when any one enters, and replaced behind them ; or it may
be, as among the Orahone and Nonuya, covered by a
curtain of thatch, which is hung on a cross-piece of the eaves
by a strip of liana, and simply is pushed aside and swung
back into place. In a Nonuya house the door is marked
outside by bundles of rods neatly tied and set against the
side posts.^ Whatever the " door " may be, the opening is
invariably kept closed, and it is the duty of any persons
coming in to fasten up the entrance as soon as they have
entered.^ The consequence of this absence of any opening
is that the interiors of the malokas are nearly as dark by
day as by night. But this deep gloom keeps out insects —
no small consideration in a land so infested with them.

.TL j::^ ji2^

Fig. 4. — Section of houses.

The interior with its pointed roof resembles, as Robuchon
remarked, a circus at a country fair. The central space is
usually kept clear, and is used by the children as a playing-
ground what time it is not required for more serious tribal
business, such as dancing or a tobacco palaver. The far end
of the house — ^where there is usually another small entrance
— ^is the portion reserved for the chief and his family. As a
rule it is open, but I have seen it matted off in some Witoto
houses. Neither the Boro nor the Witoto indulge in the
cubicles of palm -leaf thatch mentioned by Wallace in
Uaupes houses,^ nor are their habitations divided into two,
with a small chamber at the end, as described by Koch-

1 This is architecturally interesting in view of Foucart's theory of the
evolution of the Egyptian grooved stone pillar from wooden originals,
bundles of reeds.

2 Simson mentions such a " door," p. 237.

3 Wallace, p. 341.

PLATE VII

" ' : ,' "'^

^■^^f;:;^

.,W^

J''

^^^-

J^^M

H''

-'**^

P«

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Griinberg in Tuyuka houses.^ Each family has its own
fire, but that is the only distinction, though on the lower
Apaporis mats of beaten palm-leaf are used to form a sort
of booth for each family. Such mats, duriei as the Witoto
call them, are also employed in some houses for the pro-
tective purpose of securing the entrance.

The Apaporis Indians also make shelves or platforms
on which they sleep, but all the other Issa-Japura tribes
use the hammock slung about 2 J feet from the ground
One is hung for every man adjacent to his family fire
—almost over it in fact. A second, placed rather less
advantageously, in local opinion, belongs to his wife ; while
a third may be set between
the two, close under the
sloping thatch, for the
children, when they are not
asleep on the rough floor of
uncovered earth. The
family possessions are stored
in places on the rafters over-
head along with the ham-
mocks, cooking -pots, and
baskets with dried fish or
smoked meat, the cassava-
squeezer and personal
treasures.

The chief has no other
house, but any tribesman
with a wish for one can
build a small house for himself and his family in the bush,
though he still retains his right to a corner in the common
dwelling of the tribe. A temporary shelter is easily con-
trived by lashing poles to four trees, some seven or eight feet
abov6 the ground. On this frame-work branches for rafters
and palm-leaves for thatch are quickly adjustable. This is the
ordinary way of preparing a sleeping-place in the forest, and

^ Among the Jivaro one partitioned half of the house is kept for the
women (Orton, p. 171). There is no such distinction among the Issa-
Japura tribes.

Fig. 5.

AAA, posts. B, fire. C C C, hammocks.
D D, Wall.

48 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

is known among the rubber-gatherers as a rancho, but the
Indians' private houses are constructed more securely, and
more Hke miniature editions of the central tribal house,
although in this case no wall whatever supports the sloping
roof as a rule. These may be called their country homes,
and they may be perhaps as much as two days' journey
from the great house of assembly.

At ordinary times there will be possibly from fifty to
sixty people in the tribal house, but on the occasion of any
festivity as many as two hundred will crowd in, all as by
right entitled. What the atmosphere is like on those
occasions may better be imagined than described. I in-
variably slept in native houses, and never found them other
than very dark, very hot at night, and full of smoke, for
which there is no outlet, chimneys being unknown luxuries
with most of the tribes. Some of the Indians on the Apaporis
contrive an arrangement that permits the smoke to dis-
appear, and the Kuretu make what is almost a chimney-
cowl by means of an overhanging portion of the topmost
thatch above a small opening ; ^ but in the ordinary Boro
or Witoto house there is nothing to disperse the smoke from
the wood fires that, it must be remembered, are never
extinguished. These tribes have no means of making
fire. It is therefore a matter of vital importance that it
should never be permitted to die out. Did such an un-
toward accident occur the household would be tireless till
live embers were obtained from some friendly neighbour.

Fire-making is unknown to the tribes on the south of
the Japura, but on the north of that river fire is obtained
by friction in a groove.^ I never saw it done, but was told
that ants' nests were often used for tinder. On one occasion
I made a fire by firing cartridges into a mass of leaves and
wood chips, having first extracted the bullets and replaced
them with cotton wool. The leaves flamed up after fourteen
rounds. Matches are sheer magic in the Indian's eyes, and

1 Cf. Wallace, p. 354.

2 Crevaux has described the process. He watched an Indian " qui
fait du feu en roulant vivement un roseau dans une cavite creusee dans une
tige de roncon ' ' ( Voyage dans I' A mirique du sud, p. 2 1 4) . Wallace mentions
this method among the Kuretu, op. cit. 355.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

a box is a most valuable gift. He may blaze one, just to
be certain that the white man has passed on some of his
own magical powers along with the wonderful little box of
sticks, but never more than one is sacrificed at a time.

What with the heavy dews and the incessant rain the
bush is always in a condition of reeking damp, so bush
fires are impossible. Therefore, when they cannot make fire,
the Indians must keep the family fire burning night and
day, and its preservation is the very serious business of

Fffie

Fig. 6.

every member of the tribe. Not only do they depend on
it for warmth and cooking, but the fitful glow of the
smouldering fires is on ordinary occasions the only light in
file Indian house. Torches of resinous wood are used at
dances and such-like festivals only. When the tribesmen
go into the bush they always carry fire over their shoulders.
This is done by means of a strip of some resinous bark,
about two feet long, which they hold in their hands. The
bark smoulders slowly, and can at any time be blown into
a flame.

50 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

The fire is always arranged after a definite pattern.
Three young trees are placed together on the ground end-
ways, in the form of a triskeles. The fire is kindled in the
centre, and once alight it will last for as long as a week at a
time. All day when people pass, even the little children,
they will give a kick to a log to keep the fire together, and
during the night it is fed continually in the same fashion.

The natives sleep with no more covering than they have
worn in the daytime. The hammocks of the father, the
mother, and the children are slung, as has been said, in a
triangle, with the fire between them. As the fire dies down
one or other will rise and push the wood more closely
together, blow a little at the hot embers, and then return
to rest, till about the hour before sunrise, whe^ it is coldest.
Then every one gets up, and when the fire has been blown
into a blaze they wait for dawn.

Dawn is the signal for all to repair to the river for the
first bath of the day. The girls come back with big jars
full of water on their heads, held in position by their up-
lifted hands. The women go to work in the plantations,
the men may hunt and fish. As day advances into evening
the women return again from the plantation, the mothers,
naked and shining from the evening bath, with their children
seated astride their left hips ; while those not encumbered
carry up the pine-apples, the plantains, and the manioc,
packed in baskets that are slung from their foreheads.
Those who have sought provision in the forest bring back
lizards and snakes — ^it may be a frog, for nothing seems
amiss for the hot-pot of the Indian. The hunters come in
from the bush with a capybara, a curassow, or a monkey ;
the men who preferred the river bring fish. Soon there
is a savoury smell from the cooking of cassava cakes, the
boiling of meat, and the pungent odour of yarakue. There
is not much talk, and none of the homely clatter of dishes,
for leaves serve as plates and napkins, fingers for eating
utensils. The naked women crouch on their heels about
the fires ; the men stretch languidly in their hammocks ;
and so the Indian day passes by imperceptible degrees again
to night.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 51

So much for the human inhabitants of the tribal house-
hold. There are others of less pleasing character. Spiders
are there, some of an extraordinary size, not forgetting the
deadly tarantula. One day I placed my hand carelessly
on one of the posts in an Indian house, and only just with-
drew it in time, for it had been within an inch or two of a
large mygale. Scorpions also lurk in crannies of the thatch,
but they never bothered me in the least, and although the
swelling was considerable in the one or two cases of bite
I noted, there were no after-consequences.

The Menimehe, whose houses are more open, make hives
of hollow trees for bees to swarm in, and these are placed
in their maloka, so that a store of honey and wax is always
at hand.

The smoke and darkness keep off the pium and mosquito,
but outside the dwelling ants abound, though their value as
scavengers does in a measure detract from their general
undesirability ; for it is thanks mainly to them that there
are no bad smells in the vicinity of a Witoto home, as
cleanliness is not a virtue of the Witoto. The daily rain,
also, prevents any accumulation of filth, for everything of
that description is continually washed away.

Jiggers are found in Indian houses, though never in the
bush. There need be no trouble with these tiresome
creatures if prompt attention be paid to the part affected.
It is a common practice among the Indians for the women
to examine the men's feet directly they come in, to see that
they are all right, and if a jigger is detected to dig it out
with a palm-spine, care being taken that a non-poisonous
spine is selected.^ A very much more serious injury
is inflicted by the blood-sucking bat. Not only the forest
but the dark and lofty roof of the native house will often
harbour bats of several kinds, and occasionally some of the
Phyllostoma. Vampires, however, are more frequently met
with on the main river than on the Issa or Japura.^ They

^ If a jigger is removed at once with a needle it will not hurt, and
scarcely makes a puncture.

^ Vampires in this country are few and far between, but Simson men-
tions them as a plague at Agnano (Simson, p. 131).

52 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

undoubtedly attack sleepers, and the subsequent loss of
blood may be serious, especially in the case of a child.
The point made for is always the big toe, and the wound is
so slight that the victim does not waken, or if awake is
hardly conscious of the hurt. It is possible that the loss
of blood induces a comatose state. I never actually saw
a case, though I have talked to persons who had been bitten.
But the vampire is rare in these districts, whereas other
bats are common enough in the forest.

As a general rule the Indians have no pets ; but on
one occasion, near a Boro settlement on the north of the
Japura, I saw some children of the Menimehe tribes with
tame monkeys. These were the only Indians I ever met
who kept any pet. Animal food is too scarce in the forest.
Bates asserts that " the Indians are very fond of them
[monkeys] as pets, and the women often suckle them when
young at their breasts." ^ I never heard of such a case as
this, but certainly the monkey must be caught extremely
young to be tamable at all ; and, I repeat, food is scarce.

* Bates, i. 246. For the taming of a full-grown Coita see p. 247. An-
other pet mentioned by Bates, a " strange kind of wood-cricket," is also
unknown to me as a pet, and though I have often heard loud-voiced insects
of the cricket class they have never been in captivity (cf. Bates, i. 250).

CHAPTER IV

Classification of Indian races — Difi&culties of tabulating — Language-
groups and tribes — Names — Sources of confusion — Witoto and Boro —
Localities of language-groups — Population of districts — Intertribal
strife — Tribal enemies and friends — Reasons for endless warfare —
Intertribal trade and communications — Relationships — Tribal organ-
isation— The chief, his position and powers — Law — Tribal council —
Tobacco -drinking — Marriage system and regulations — Position of
women-^-Slaves .

Given equal conditions, similar environment, the human
race, wheresoever on this globe its lot be cast, shows a
marked sameness in its traits and habits. This need not,
in fact does not, argue a unity of origin. There is no reason
why a custom may not be indigenous in many parts of the
world, among peoples labouring under like conditions ;
and if the same customs be evolved the same cultural types
will also be found to exist. Thus it is easy to find even
striking resemblances between these Indians of Amazonia
and such distant peoples as the Arunta of Central Australia,
the cannibal tribes of pagan Malay, or, to go even wider
afield, the Basque people of Southern Europe. This does
not for a moment suggest that such common beliefs, customs,
or cultures have been introduced from one to the other,
or even borrowed from a common stock. The human mind
seems to work broadly on certain definite planes of thought,
and there is less mental difference between the low-t5^e
illiterate of a London slum and the denizens of a tropical
forest than there is between him and the learned occupant
of a University Chair, though both be nominally of the same
nation.

Attempts are continually made to evolve some working
classification of the South American Indians. The main

54 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

difficulty, the sparsity of common factors, despite general
similarity, is due in a measure at least to the absence of any
standard, any fixity of language, or any confederation
between the units of these races. The only rule is that there
is no rule. What was a common word yesterday is possibly
forgotten to-day ; the custom shared a generation ago may
vary now past recognition, and to-morrow will see further
changes that increase the diversity. These people are in a
state of flux. Disintegration is the determinant influence ;
nothing makes for amalgamation. A section of a tribe
isolated from the remainder, surrounded by neighbours
whose speech, whose physical features, are entirely different,
may develop into a distinct tribe with dialect and customs
as variant from the parent tribe as from those in its new
vicinage.^ But extinction rather than such increase is the
more probable fate. These tribes are hardly embryos of
nations to be, nor can they be entirely classified as the
decadent remnants of perishing races. Rather did it seem
to me that, despite the awful handicap of their environment,
they were gradually evolving a higher culture. Their origin
is a problem of no small interest, but one on which recorded
history throws exceedingly little light. Whether they be
the autochthonous sons of American soil, or the stranded
vanguard of successive waves of Mongoloid immigrants
pushed southwards to be swallowed up in the Amazonian
forests,^ or — which is most probable — a combination of both,
can only be in part determined by the study of their physical
traits, their habits, customs, speech, morals, and beliefs.
It is for the comparative anthropologist, the comparative
folklorist, to find an answer.

As an instance of the difficulty of classification, and the
confusion that has resulted in much of the literature on this
subject, the statements given in the Contemporary Science
Series volume. The Races of Man, may be examined. Deni-
ker orders the Indians in four divisions — Carib, Arawak,
Miranha, and Pano ; and classifies the Witoto in the first,
taking the determinative ethnic distinction to be " their
acquaintance with the hammock, a plaited (not woven)

1 Cf. Martius, P.R.G.S. ii. 192. * See Appendix.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 55

texture, and a particular kind of cassava-squeezer." ^ If
this is correct and sufficient, all the Indians of the middle
Issa-Japura regions are Caribs. But I do not think the
arguments are conclusive. For example, " the practice of
the * couvade * " is given as racially distinctive of the Carib.^
But couvade is by no means peculiar to the Carib. In this
region it is a common custom of the Witoto and the Boro,
who are linguistically and physically diverse.^ Then, as
regards the hammock, it has been pointed out by Sir Everard
im Thum, who holds that the Carib did not migrate to British
Guiana from the interior but from the islands,* that the
Caribs of Guiana, the '* stranger tribes,'* as he calls them,
that is, tribes who have migrated thither, " make their
hammocks of cotton," while the native tribes use palm-fibre.^
None of the Issa-Japura tribes make use of cotton yam for
their hammocks ; it is, in fact, almost unknown to them,
and what Uttle they may possess is presumably obtained by
barter, for to the best of my knowledge they do not prepare
it, or know how to prepare it ; palm-fibre only is used by
them. The explanation probably is that Deniker apparently
confuses the Karahone and the Witoto, as he speaks of " the
Uitotos or Cari Jonas," as though they were the same, instead
of a totally distinct group of tribes. He also gives Crevaux
as his authority, when he states that the Witoto — according
to him a Carib group — " live side by side with the Miranhas,"
Miranha being differentiated as a distinct branch. But Dr.
Crevaux speaks of " Ouitotos ou Miranhas,'' ^ and remarks
that '* Les Miranhas du Yapura sont appeles par leurs
voisins * Ouitotos.* " ' It would seem, then, that the

^ Deniker, p. 552.

* Marriage by capture was a Carib custom (Westermarck, p. 383).
It is unknown nowadays to the tribes south of the Japura.

3 Partial couvade is found also among tribes in the north of America,
that is to say, certain things are tabu to the father after the child's birth.
Cf. Dorsey, Siouan Cults, p. 511 ; Venegas, i. 94 ; Tylor, pp. 294-7,

* im Thum, p. 173. Joyce locates the original Caribs on the upper
Xingu, from whence, he considers, they spread over Guiana and the lesser
Antilles {South American ArchcBology, p. 256). Rodway, on the authority of
Spanish chronicled Arawak information, suggests they were the original in-
habitants of the north-west coast, migrant from Mexico {Guiana, pp. 41, 45).

^ Ibid. pp. 171-2.

* Crevaux, Fleuves de rAmirique du Sud, Yapura, F. 5 et 7.
' Crevaux, Vocahulaire frangais-roucouyenne.

56 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

French traveller considered that the Witoto language-group
belongs to the same racial division as the Miranha language-
group, though, as Dr. Koch-Griinberg remarks, the languages
of these groups " ne pr^sentent aucun signe de parente entre
elles." ^ In fact, he is of the opinion that " on serait sans
doubte plus pres de la verity si on rattachait les diff^rents
dialectes paries dans la region des Ouitotos a un groupe
linguistique nouveau/' This he designates the groupe
Ouitoto.^ Miranha or Miranya is the name given to the
Boro by the tribes on the north, and is the lingoa-geral name
for the Boro and other groups. The word means a wanderer,
a gratuitous distinction where all tribes have nomadic tend-
encies, and this may be the reason why it has apparently
been applied to several groups.

It is not surprising that there should be confusion over
any attempted classification of these peoples, for not only
are there many language-groups, each with numerous tribes,
but in addition to this a group or a tribe will have not one
distinct name by which it may be known and classed, but a
number of names, so that inevitably the writer without
personal knowledge of a group will be easily misled in
dealing with it and its divisions.

So far as the Indians are concerned no language-group
and no tribe use the esoteric name. They talk simply of
** our speech " or " our own people," and they are named,
and frequently named differently, by the surrounding tribes.
The Boro, for example, are known as Boro to the tribes
from the west and south, as Miranya to some of those of the
east and the north ; the same tribe would therefore be Boro
to the Witoto and Miranya to the Yuri or the Menimehe.
The Dukaiya are called Okaina — ^which means " capybara " —
by the Witoto, though they are also called Dukaiya, which
is the extra-tribal name of their most powerful tribe or
section. Muenane and Nonuya are also Witoto names. ^
Witoto is the esoteric name for mosquito, but the Witoto

1 Koch-Grunberg, Journal de la SociiU des A miricainistes de Paris, tome
iii. No. 2 (1906).

* Koch-Griinberg, Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic, xxxviii. 189.

* It must be remembered that I came to all these people from the Witoto
country.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 57

tribes were thus named by the tribes on the south either
because the name has the same meaning in their language
or because they had learned the Witoto word for this insect.
In this case the esoteric name is the same as the exoteric.
Crevaux gives ouitoto as the word for " enemy " among
the Karahone and the Roucouyennes,^ and Martins has a
similar word for that meaning among other tribes.^ All
this adds to the difficulties of nomenclature. It must be
understood, also, that if you ask a Witoto, " 0 Memeka bu?"
(What tribe do you belong to ?) he would not tell you, but
he would answer in the affirmative if the question be put as
to whether he belongs to a certain tribe or to a ^^ Ttain
group, though he will not himself use the tribal or group
name. This applies to all Indians. Moreover, there is the
very thorny question of spelling. I have throughout adopted
the rule laid down by the Royal Geographical Society, and
spelt words with English consonants — that is to say, with
their equivalent values — and Italian vowels. This is the
most generally accepted method, but even with this peculi-
arities of ear must result in simdry variants.

Another source of confusion in writing about these peoples
has been the indiscriminate use of the words nation, tribe,
clan, family. To avoid possibility of mistake it may be
\ explained at the outset that tribe is here used in the sense
ruled by the new editions of both the Anthropological and
the Folklore Handbooks, that is to say, " a group with a
common language, code of law, some rude form of govern-
ment, and capable of uniting for common action." These
tribes I would further classify into language-groups, such as
the Witoto language-group, the Boro language-group, and
so forth. The group name — Witoto, Boro, Andoke, or
whatever the case may be— applies to all the tribes of these
groups, in addition to their individual names. The varia-
tions between these tribes of a group are mainly dialectic
and local, but the variance between tribes of alien groups
is more than a difference of speech and custom. The Boro,
for instance, are distinctly Chinese in appearance ; their

^ Crevaux, Voyages dans I'Amirique du Sud, p. 368.
* Martius, Beitrdge, ii. 340.

58 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

neighbours the Witoto resemble rather the Dyaks of
Borneo.

The two groups with which we are mainly concerned,
and the only two with which it is possible in this book to
deal seriously in detail, are the Witoto and the Boro. They
occupy roughly the lands between the Japura and the Igara
Parana, and the Igara Parana and the Issa, though there
are no actual boundaries. The Boro country lies north-
west of the Futahi Hills, in the watersheds of the Pupuna
and the Kahuanari rivers. The Boro also occupy a stretch
of country north of the Japura, where that river bends
south and east below its junction with the Wama, and
including part of the Ira watershed. On this, the north-
east border, they meet the country of the Menimehe, while
on the north they touch the Karahone country. The
Resigero and Nonuya districts lie between them and the
Muenane. The country by the Futahi Hills west of the
Igara Parana, that is to say, the basins of the Esperanza
and Sabalo Yacu rivers, is very sparsely populated, and the
Dukaiya country on the west of the Nonuya practically
separates the Witoto and the Boro on the north-west.
From the mouth of an unnamed tributary of the Japura —
below the Tauauru and on the opposite bank — the Andoke
country runs south of the Japura to the junction of the
Kuemani, where the Japura becomes the boundary between
the Andoke and the Witoto. On the west the Orahone
country lies on the farther side of the Issa from the Witoto,
the Issa being the dividing line from the west and south-
west of the Witoto group. The name Orahone is given to
all tribes indiscriminately if they elongate the lobes of their
ears,^ so the Orahone, or Long-ears, may possibly be many
distinct tribes. Thus, one writer notes of the Napo tribes, the
*'Cotos" and the "Tutapishcos," that they **are sometimes
called * Orejones,' " but are not so known locally. ^ The
Orahone are of a low type. To the east of the Menimehe
and the Boro districts the Kuretu language-group of tribes

^ The Inca were called Orejones by the Spaniards on account of the
large studs they wore in the lobes of their ears. See Joyce, p. no;
Ratzel, ii. 172.

2 Simson, p. 210.

ATERSHED

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

occupy the country north and south of the Japura. To
the north the Opaina, Makuna, and Tukana groups interpose
between them and the Bara and Maku groups. The Maku
are found from the Rio Negro to the Apaporis, and again
above the Bara group north of the Arara Hills about the
Kaouri river, a tributary of the Uaupes. Though the Bara
group live to the north of the Apaporis they have nothing
in common with the Uaupes Indians. Both their language
and customs resemble more those of the Japura, and they
have no intercourse with the surrounding tribes. They are
a dark-skinned people, of a low type, and consequently
looked down on by their lighter-skinned neighbours. The
Maku, also of a low type and dark, are a very nomadic
group ; in fact all these peoples are wanderers, and the
districts here given for their localities must be taken as
merely approximate. That they were there when I was in
the country is no guarantee that they will be found there
now, or a few years hence. The locality of a tribe, or a
language-group, is mainly dependent on the locality of its
neighbours, especially of any powerful or warlike body.
The tribes of the upper Issa districts are semi-civilised
Colombian, those of the lower waters semi-civilised Brazilian
Indians. Only in the middle district have the tribes been
free, until recently, from the influence of the white man.

It is almost impossible to give the populations of these
districts even in round figures. My own estimate for the nine
language-groups of the Issa -Japura region, based roughly
on the number of houses and the extent of country, is as
follows : but, I repeat, these figures must be taken as very ap-
proximate, and are probably overestimated in some cases : —

Witoto group of tribes
Boro group .
Dukaiya or Okaina group
Muenane group
Nonuya group
Resigero group
Andoke group
Menimehe group
Karahone group

15,000

2,000

1,000

10,000

15,000

25,000

6o THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

making a total of eighty-six thousand, or well under a
hundred thousand. Koch-Griinberg estimates the Witoto-
language group as comprising at least twenty thousand
souls,^ and a Peruvian official estimate gives thirty thousand
as the supposed total, reduced within the last decade to some
ten thousand.^ It is practically impossible to obtain any
reliable figure. Koch-Griinberg gives six thousand as his
estimate of the number of the Miranha. I am inclined to
think in this case the number is insufficient, and should
place it at from fifteen to twenty thousand.

All the tribes north of the Japura have a mortal anti-
pathy to all those south of that river, and think they are
savages. The light-coloured tribes, as I have mentioned,
invariably despise the darker races, and consider them of a
lower grade than themselves, as, it will be seen, is actually
the case. The Maku, a tribe of small dark people, are imi-
versally regarded and treated as slaves ; the Witoto, smaller
and darker than the adjacent Boro, are physically inferior,
and far less particular in their ways and in the observance
of tribal customs. The Andoke, sometimes called the
white Indians on account of their fairer skins,^ are the
tyrants and bullies of all their neighbours ; and it has been
suggested that the warlike Awashiri, who are the terror of
the Napo Piohe and Orahone tribes, are nomad Andoke or
Miranha. Certainly both these people wander far from
their usual districts. So feared are the Andoke that Boro
carriers will refuse to go into the bush in the Andoke country.

Wallace credits the Kuretu with peaceable habits,* but
for the most part all these peoples live in a constant state
of internecine strife. Some friendship, or perhaps — as
tribes never make friendships outside their own language
area — it would be more correct to call it intertribal commerce,
takes place between certain of these groups ; and a mutual
hatred of one group will occasionally form a vague tie
between others. For instance, the Boro, Resigero, and
Okaina may not love each other, but they agree in their

1 Koch-Griinberg, Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, xxxviii. i88 (1906).

2 Cd. 6266, pp. 9, 10, 12, 25, 26.

3 Rice, p. 690. * Wallace, p. 354.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 6i

detestation of the Witoto. The Okaina and the Andoke
are practically at ceaseless war with all their neighbours,
but the Andoke have some traffic with the Muenane and
with the wandering Karahone, who serve to link up the
tribes of the north with those of the south of the Japura,
though they are separate from all other tribes. The Boro
on the left bank of the Japura, where they migrated into
territory trenching on that of the Menimehe, are on fairly
amicable terms with the latter, and 1 have even seen a Boro
man with the Menimehe tribal mark, though menimehe
means " pig '* in Boro. Possibly he had married a Meni-
mehe woman. The Boro and Resigero also intermarry —
at least cases of such marriages are known. The Tukana
and Bara tribes on the Tikie will not marry into any
other tribe, except the Maku, who will intermarry with
any.

This state of endless warfare is based not on avarice
but on fear. They fight because they are afraid of each
other, and see no protection but in the extermination of
their neighbours. Every ill that befalls a man they set
down to the evil intent of an enemy. Death, from whatso-
ever cause, is invariably considered to be murder, and as
murder it has to be revenged on some suspected person or
persons. Hence it follows that blood-feuds innumerable
are carried on relentlessly. Any and every excuse serves
for a fight. If a thunderstorm should wreck a house it is
more than sufficient reason for that household to attack
another in reprisal of the damage done ; for it is to them
quite evident that the catastrophe was caused by the magic
of some malicious dweller in the vicinity.

This state of abject apprehension influences the tribesmen
in other ways. It will be found as root cause of many a
tribal custom, and must not be forgotten in judging of
native character and morals.

One result is that there are no recognised native trade
routes or trade centres, to the best of my knowledge, nor
are there any markets where the tribes of any language-
group may meet and exchange their wares. Even local
markets are non-existent. Trade is individual. Articles

62 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

of commerce are handed from the maker to the purchaser,
from the owner to the buyer, from tribe to tribe. If a tribe
be renowned for pottery, as are the Menimehe, such pottery
could only be obtained from a Menimehe, or bought " second-
hand " from tribes living in the neighbourhood of the pottery
workers, and from them traded to others, third, fourth, and
even fifth hand. That articles are bought and passed on
indefinitely in this fashion is proved by the fact that I found
a Price's candle-box among the Boro tribes on the Pama
river, who had had no relations with the white man before
my advent. After all, the wants of the Indian are few and
simple, and he can supply most of them for himself, or at
least a community can furnish its own ; extra-tribal goods
are distinctly luxuries.

It would be futile to attempt to give any localities for
the many tribes into which the language-groups are divided ;
for if the group as a whole is to be regarded as a roving
quantity, the tribes and their component units are far more
uncertain, in view of their migratory habits. I have there-
fore not done more than make lists of the tribes met with
in the middle Issa-Japura districts, without reference to
the exact spot they might have temporarily inhabited
when I met them.^ These lists, which do not pretend to be
exhaustive, contain the names of 136 Witoto tribes, 41
Boro, and 15 Okaina.

The " Maynanes," " Recegaros," and " Yabuyanos "
mentioned by Hardenburg 2 as Witoto " sub- tribes, or
naciones," are not Witoto at all, and nacione is not a recog-
nised name for these divisions, but merely adopted from the
loose jargon of the rubber-gatherer. Nor is the same
writer correct in considering the Witoto to be " the largest
and most important tribe," as the Karahone outnumber
them considerably, and many other language-groups are
decidedly more important in both the social and the
scientific scale.

There is nothing to show any affinity among the tribes,
and there is none of the intricate relationship of the

^ See Appendix.
* Hardenburg, Man, p. 134.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 63

Australian systems. The social unit of the tribes is the
undivided household community of some sixty to two
hundred individuals, with a common house, under the
rule of a chief. Some tribes have but one central tribal
house, others may have two or three ; but each house
would have its absolutely independent chief and would be
exogamous. There is no head chief or central organisation
to bind these households in the tribe, any more than there
is to unite the tribes of any language-group. Intertribal
fighting is continual, and only some great common danger,
some threatened calamity of the gravest, might serve to
combine the tribes in a supreme effort for self-defence. A
man with an unusual magnetic influence might so dominate
his neighbours as to weld tribe and tribe for extra-tribal
struggle. At the most some half-dozen tribes under spur
of most hazardous peril, urged to superhuman effort by
imminent torture and death, ever unite even for war. On
the rare occasions when this may be done the exceptional
individual would be but the greatest among equals, not
a recognised commander-in-chief.^ I only know of one
instance in point. Nonugamue, a Nonuya, was paramount
chief of the entire Nonuya-speaking area, a large tract of
country that lies between the Boro and the Okaina, and
south of the Muenane and Resigero tribes. It was quite a
recent usurpation on the part of this chief, and I never
discovered any other case of one man influencing so large
a district. It is true that a Boro chief named Katenere did
get together a band of men numbering from thirty to forty
to make war to the death against the white rubber-gatherers ;
but in this instance, though he was of notable personality,
he could not combine the tribes. His band were all Boro,
simply men of his own type, the boldest spirits of various
tribes. A Resigero chief also made himself notorious by
collecting a body of warriors to make war not on the white

^ This combination is of so exceptional a character that it is hardly
to be recognised as a definite trait of organisation, and it follows that
though such exceptional cases may point to a possible past unity of clans
as a tribe, these clans are now practically small tribes, being incapable
of combining for common action. The expressions language-group, tribe,
and tribesman are therefore more correct than tribe, clan, and clansman
would be.

64 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

men but on those Indians who gave way to the pressure
put upon them by these whites and agreed to work rubber.
He warred, therefore, against his own tribe, against members
of his own language-group, and he did so lest worse should
befall his people. He knew of no other remedy than to
make the punishment for yielding equal to that for refusing
to yield. Nothing less in his opinion could save the tribes.
Once I came upon a habitation with the dead bodies of
thirty-eight men, women and children — for he spared none
who had any dealing with the whites. They had been slain,
and the house partly burnt, by this chief. In consequence
of these drastic measures he was feared by whites and
Indians alike, and both when walking through the bush
within possible distance of his district would start at a
sound every few minutes and imagine it was this redoubt-
able warrior on the warpath again.

But these cases were abnormal, due to the presence of
new and evil factors that threatened the tribes with a fate
to which death itself were preferable. It was the instance
of the approach of an unparalleled danger, the signal for
supreme exertion, and for unexampled negligence of customs
that are stronger than all law.

In normal conditions the chief has no influence beyond
his own household, and the extent of that influence would
depend largely on the man's personal character, and also
the character of the rival authority, the tribal medicine-
man. Whichever happens to possess the strongest per-
sonality would be the dominant spirit of their little com-
munity. Other things being equal, the odds are decidedly
in favour of the medicine-man — death comes speedily to
those who rebel against the magic-worker — and a weak
chief would be entirely subservient to him.

The chief has a special portion of the house assigned to
him and his family, a larger share than would be allotted
to any other man ; but this privilege is necessary, as all
prisoners belong to the chief, and he takes all the unattached
women. As he thus has more women to work for him the
big tribal plantations become his. He leads the tribe in
war, presides over the tobacco palaver, and has the last

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 65

word in the tribal councils. The chief has no special name,
for there are no titles of courtesy, except among the Andoke,
who call a chief Posoa. The ordinary warrior will talk to
the chief with no outward sign of respect ; still, the chief's
word carries a great amount of weight.

On the death of a chief his successor must be elected by
the tribe, and though the son as a rule is appointed, he does
not become chief as a matter of course, but only after tribal
selection. If due cause should be shown against him, and
the tribe be of accord on the point when the matter has
been discussed in tobacco palaver, another man would be
chosen, and the honour conferred on him in accordance with
tribal decision independent of relationship.

There is but one law among the tribes, and that law is
paramount and infrangible — Pia, it is our custom. Custom,
more binding than any legal code, shepherds the Indian
from the cradle to the grave. And Pia is not only the law,
it is the reason for all things. So it has always been.
Neither the chief, the medicine-man, nor the tribal council
makes the law, though it is the business of all three to en-
force it, and it can only be set aside, on the rare instances
when such liberty would be tolerated, with the consent of
the tribesmen given in formal conclave.

The tribal coimcil consists of all the males of the house-
hold who have attained to man's estate, under the presi-
dency of the chief ; and the Indian parliament, the Indian
court of law, is the tobacco palaver.

This tobacco drinking — the chupe del tabac, as Robuchon
calls it — of which so much has been written, must not be
confounded with the kawana drinking at a dance. When
word has gone round that it is desired to hold a council
the warriors and elders of the tribe foregather, and squat
on their haunches round the tobacco-pot, which is placed
by one of the assembly on the ground in their midst. One
of the group will start the subject to be brought under
discussion, usually the Indian whose advice or suggestion
has influenced the chief to call the council, or the one who
has a cause to lay before the tribe. It may be a matter of
war, some question of hunting, or the wrong-doing of a

66 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

fellow-tribesman that has to be discussed and jiidged. The
speaker is doubtless under the influence of coca, and will talk
on and on. He may take hours to deliver his oration, given
with endless repetitions, while those who agree with him
will grunt " Heu ! " to show approval from time to time
throughout the performance. When his final word is
uttered the spokesman will reach forward and take the
pot, dip in a short stick, and wipe some of the black
liquid on his tongue. He will then pass the pot round to
his companions, and every man who has agreed with him
will take tobacco, whilst any one who passes the pot by
— ^to signify he disagrees — ^will be bound to give his reason
for being of an opposite opinion. This is continued until
all in disagreement with the original speaker have put
forth their views. The question at issue is then settled
by whichever side may have the majority, the chief having
the casting vote. There is no appeal against such settle-
ment. It is absolutely final.

The passing of tobacco is also used as a binding promise
on every verbal agreement between individuals. In this
case they will dip a small stick like a match into the liquid
and pass it over the tongue, or put their forefingers into
each other's tobacco pots, made from the hollowed husks
of nuts, and which are usually carried suspended round the
neck by a string. The tobacco pot comes into requisition
again at a friendly meeting, and serves to emphasise the
binding nature of the friendship.

Though these Indians now all hold to patrilineal and
patrilocal law, there are traces that point to possibly original
matrilocal customs among them, such as still obtain among
some of the tribes of British Guiana.^ We find survivals of
marriage by capture ; but in no tribe are the girls sold, nor
have they any dowry. The husband, once he has obtained
his wife, is entirely responsible for her maintenance.

Both endogamy and exogamy, with a preference for the
former, exist so far as the tribe is concerned ; but with
regard to the social unit of the tribe, the community that
shares a common house of assembly, the rule of exogamy

1 Cf. im Thurn, p. 185.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 67

is very strictly enforced. The reason for this is that all
within a household are held to be kin. The one exception
for this law among the tribes is also the one exception to
their patrilocal customs. In the possible instance of a
chief having a daughter but no sons to succeed him, the
daughter may marry a man of the same household, who
would probably be an adopted son. Any other exception
would be most unusual, and could only be attempted with
the permission of the tribe after thorough consideration of
the case in tribal council. Otherwise any son and any
daughter of a household, no matter though they be of
different parentage, are barred from marriage by the blood-
tie ; yet what we should look upon as an equally close
relationship on the spindle side is regarded by the Indians
as no such thing, only the most intimate relations of the
mother ever being so much as coimted kin.^ A man may
marry into the household from which his mother came
without transgressing any recognised law, because the
mother, having left her original household to join that of
her husband, has become one of his household on marriage,
and has ceased to belong to her own. In all probabihty
she will have had little or no intercourse with it. Marriage
between two individuals does not establish any admitted
affinity between their respective households. It follows
that the children of two sisters might possibly intermarry,
but the children of two brothers never could.

Woman's lot among all the tribes of the Amazon is
commonly regarded as a hard one. It is true that the
steady grind of the day's work falls to her share. Men
work intermittently, but the work that falls to the women
to do is incessant. In addition to the natural functions of
the mother and the housekeeper, the duties of an Indian
wife include the bulk of all agricultural labour. The
husband's energies cease when he has cleared and broken
up a patch of land, reclaimed a field from the surrounding
forest, an arduous task that needs more physical strength
than women possess. The ground once freed of trees and

' This is exactly the reverse of the matrilocal customs related by Sir
Everard im Thurn.

68 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

undergrowth, and roughly dug, the husband considers that
his share in the toil is at an end, and he will lie in his
hammock, eat, and sleep, while his wife, the baby slung
behind her, tills the field and harvests the crops. It is for
her to plant the slips and in due season dig the manioc.
She must attend to the growing plant, and eventually
prepare the roots for use. But it would be wrong to infer
that the Indian husband is a lazy slave-driver. If his work
is occasional it must be confessed that he does undertake
all the heaviest labour. Each sex has its own pursuits.
The man is the hunter and the warrior, the woman is help-
mate, agriculturalist, and staple food-provider. The differ-
entiation of work is very clear, bounded by the law of Pia
— it is our custom, which is like unto that of the Medes and
Persians. A man will on no account plant manioc, but he
has a reason for this rule : he says that women, being able
to produce children, can produce manioc ; production is her
province, not his.

The subjection of wives, if subjection it can be called,
is due to economic conditions. The woman holds a recog-
nised, if subordinate, position. She rarely quarrels with her
husband, though she is certainly not afraid of contradicting
him when necessary ; in fact I have met such anomalies as
hen-pecked husbands.

There are, as will be seen in detail subsequently, certain
definite restrictions imposed upon the women of the tribes,
food they may not eat, ceremonials they may not share,
sacred objects they may not even see. Coca and tobacco
they may neither prepare not partake of, a law as rigid as
that which debars men from planting or preparing manioc.
In some tribes women are not permitted to see or be seen
by strangers, but, as a rule, the married women are re-
markably free in this matter, though young girls are more
restricted.

Taken as a whole, women are well treated among all the
tribes. A woman is so far respected that her husband will
consult her, but there is nothing approaching to chivalry on
the part of the man. The Indian does not idealise. He
weaves no romantic dreams about the Sex, but looks upon

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 69

a woman from the most material standpoint, pays her no
small attentions, never thinks of saving her trouble or
any exertion, and in no way attempts to lighten her lot
in life. Yet everywhere, owing to conditions of existence,
women's influence is very great. The tribal reputation of
a man rests largely in the hands of his wife ; she can so
easily leave him if badly treated, and once the forest is
gained she is lost to him, and may without difficulty secure
the protection of another tribe, or, should public opinion be
strong enough to drive the guilty husband away, of another
man in his household. The onus of her disappearance will
lie heavy upon the husband who has forced her to such —
in Indian opinion — extraordinary action. But cruelty on
the part of a husband is rare, as rare as infidelity on the part
of a wife. A man who ventured to ill-treat his wife would
soon be the scorn of the tribe, for the other women would
promptly make a song about him, and the ridicule to which
he was exposed would be an effectual deterrent from
further ill-doing in a country where adverse public opinion
is more efficient than any police force in the prevention of
recognised wrong.

The right of women to personal possession appears to
be allowed. At death her domestic implements are buried
with her, and I have often wanted to buy some article of
adornment from a woman, but when I asked the husband
what he would like in exchange, have invariably been
referred back again to his wife, and had to conduct the
barter with her. Also, though the children belong absol-
utely to the father, it would be the mother and not the
father who would negotiate the exchange of any ornament
worn by a child.

Finally we come to the last and lowest section of a tribe,
the slaves. Slavery among the Indians themselves is little
more than a name, for a slave belongs to the chief, and
soon becomes identified with his family. Though slaves
have frequently a chance to run away they seldom do so,
for they are usually treated with kindness, and probably are
nearly as well off in the house of their victors as in their
own. Captives of both sexes under the age of seven years,

70 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

or thereabouts, are kept as slaves by the conquering
tribe ; above that age they are destroyed, as they possess
intelHgence enough presumably to betray their new tribe
to their old one. When a slave reaches man's estate he is
permitted to identify himself with the warriors as any
other boy would be ; and thereafter is looked upon as free ;
but the chief would consider that he had a lien of sorts on
such a man, and this would be commuted by payment of
perhaps half his shooting bag, probably until the time
that he married. If the chief dies, the slaves become the
property of the new chief, but a man, if already a warrior,
would no longer feel himself bound to a new chief, except
in so far as tribal discipline might enforce on all the
warriors. A woman slave may be purchased from the
chief by the gift of some small present to his wife. After
this the girl is free.

Maku slaves have little huts of their own in the forest,
where they live apart, and are never in any way familiar
with their masters. They are permitted to keep their own
women. These slaves are generally despised. They act
the part of the " proverbial cat," and are held to blame
when anything goes wrong. A medicine-man may accuse a
Maku if a death takes place, or any crime is committed, and
the wretched slave is then destroyed unhesitatingly. There
are no Maku south of the Japura.

PLATE VIII.

1. GROUP OF WITOTO

2. GROUP OF SOME OF MY CARRIERS

CHAPTER V

Dress and ornament — Geographical and tribal difierentiations — Festal
attire — Feather ornaments — Hair-dressing — Combs — Dance girdles —
Beads — Necklaces — Bracelets — Leg rattles — Ligatures — Ear-rings —
Use of labret — Nose pins — Scarification — Tattoo — Tribal marks —
Painting.

Judged by some of the pictures in books purporting to give
accounts of the South American Indians, the photograph
adjoining (Plate VIII.) would represent an Indian chieftain
decked in his best to welcome the newly-arrived traveller,
instead of what it is — merely a group of my escort and
carriers tricked out in the rag, tag, and bobtail array they
deemed due to my dignity and their own. Far different is
the actual scene when the Indian homestead is approached
and one meets these sons of the forest — ^be they Boro, Witoto,
or others — ^in their native haunts and natural garb, imaffected
by " civilised " influences. From the shadow of the interior
will stalk the chief, accompanied by his escort of warriors,
all naked, but for a strip of bark - cloth about the loins.
Roimd the neck of the chief is a necklace of jaguar teeth, in
his hand a broadsword of iron-wood ; the men with him are
destitute of feathers or ornaments, but each holds poised in
his left hand a bunch of throwing javelins.

It is regrettable that returning explorers ^ have deemed it
a necessary concession to unscientific prejudice to illustrate
the natives of the Amazons in clothing or drapery that is
wholly foreign to their custom and to their thought. The
hypocrisy was more common before the imcompromising
days of photography, but the effect of the old woodcuts and
engravings is to give an entirely wrong impression of the

^ Or their artists and publishers.
71

72 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

appearance of the Indian in his own haunts. Even so
accurate an observer as Crevaux discounts much of the value
of his illustration by clothing his figures in a manner that
could only be possible within the Rubber Belt, or in the
case of his personal servants. Since the introduction of
photography, non-existent clothing has ceased to appear in
pictures of the Amazonian tribes, but still much miscon-
struction has been occasioned by grouping sets of natives
in such a fashion as to make it appear that they are ashamed
of their nakedness. As a fact, they are totally unaware of
it. Therefore it cannot be too strongly emphasised that
the Indians of these tropical regions are no more alive to
any idea of indecency in their lack of apparel than are the
people of England conscious of immodesty in their con-
ventional attire at a Lord Mayor's banquet or a function
of the Court. It is as impossible to comprehend the true
psychology of the Amazonian from the pedestal of the
prude as from the pulpit of the priest. Difficult as it may
be for either to understand, it is none the less true that to
some peoples dress appears to be more indelicate than nudity.^
He who would see truly must divest the mind of inherited
and instilled prejudices in favour of much that to the
natives has no meaning or reason for existence. Moreover,
he might do well to remember that clothes are not always
worn from motives of decency. Then he will understand
that the naked Indian in his forest is no more unchaste than
is the statue of a Greek god in the galleries of the British
Museum.

It may be laid down as a generalisation for the regions
under investigation that the women are wholly destitute of
clothing, and the men wear little or nothing but what the
Witoto call a moh-hen, that is, a strip of beaten bark-cloth
carried from front to rear between the legs and tucked in at
either end over a string or strap of bark-cloth bound about
the waist. As the temperature varies hardly at all with
the season of the year, there is no periodical deviation from

^ " The natives are ashamed, as they say, to be clothed " (Humboldt,
Travels, iii. 230 ; cf , also Wallace, p. 357). Clothes, in fact, are often donned
by savages at periods of license only. See Westermarck, History of Human
Marriage, chap. ix.

PLATE IX.

MEDICINE MAN AND HIS WIFE (ANDOKE

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 73

this rule. Farther south the tribes make blankets, but
here, though they were interested in mine, they have nothing
of that description, ajid the native sleeps at night without
covering, exactly as he, or she, walks abroad throughout
the day.

There is practically no scope for originality, no choice of
costume. Even the chief is undistinguished from his tribes-
men by the character of his attire, although as a rule he
wears a necklace of tiger teeth, which is the outward evidence
of his rank. His wife does not wear any special ornaments,
but of necessity she possesses the greater number. The only
member of the tribe who varies from his fellows is the
medicine-man, and he will adopt any idea that appeals to
him as an addition to the eccentricity of his appearance.
One Andoke medicine-man, whom I photographed, was
wearing a turban of bark-cloth dyed a brilliant scarlet ; but
his taste in this particular was purely individual, and de-
noted neither professional nor tribal distinction. The large
bag shown in the adjoining illustration should be noted, for
it was greatly admired by the tribe. It appeared to be made
in the same way as the ligatures, with threads of red and
undyed palm -fibre. It was not manufactured by the
Andoke, but had been obtained by barter ; however, it
was of indigenous make, and probably came from the north
of the Japura. Among the Orahone the medicine-men
fashion for themselves vestments of tapir hide, the only
instance in these parts of skins being utilised for clothing
that came to my knowledge.

The Amazonian boy is first provided with a breech-cloth
when he is five years old. His earliest lesson is in its manu-
facture, for every Indian fashions his own clothing, is his
own tailor and cloth manufacturer. He goes to the bush
and selects a tree,^ on v/hich he marks a space 6 feet long
by 9 inches in width, and strips from it both the outer

^ There are several trees in these forests that supply the needed fibrous
bark, im Thurn suggests that the bark used is that of the Lecythis ollaria,
but Spruce states that tauari is made from the bark of certain species of
Tecoma of the Bignoniaceae order, and tururi, a thinner bark-cloth, from
various figs and Artocarps. Naturally natives use the tree that is handiest
when required (cf. im Thurn, pp. 194, 291 ; Spruce, i. 27).

74 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

and inner barks. He separates the two layers, cuts the
strip of inner bark in two, and carries the pieces to the river,
where the material is thoroughly soaked. Afterwards this
is beaten with a small wooden mallet until it forms a yard
length of bark-cloth 9 inches in width. Nothing further
is needed, for this makes the breech-cloth, and it is sufficient
to pass between the legs and tuck securely over the waist-
band in front and behind. There is no variation from the
type or method of manufacture,^ and this simplest form of
clothing is common to all tribes inhabiting the wide stretch
of coimtry between the rivers Issa and Japura.

The breech-cloth is never discarded by the male Indian,
nor, in the sight of man or woman, would he ever remove it.
When bathing he wades into a sufficient depth before he
interferes with its adjustment. Even when a man dies his
breech-cloth is buried with him.

South and west of the Issa, in the country of the Orahone,
the men wear, like other Napo tribes, long shirts of bark-
fibre, on which are traced circular designs painted in red,
while north of the Japura the Karahone wear stiff stays
of bark, like strait -waistcoats, above their breech -cloths.
These garments are tightly plaited on to the body, and end
in a plaited fringe. They must be cut off to permit of
removal. The same uncomfortable costume extends north-
ward from the Karahone country into that of the Umaua
and the tribes of the Apaporis district.

The Menimehe who, it will be remembered, occupy the
left bank of the Japura to the south and east of the Karahone,
wear a loin-cloth with an apron, which extends to the knees,
of loose palm-fibre suspended over it. This apron is 18
inches long and 6 inches in width, and is taken off in the
house. It is worn ceremonially, and always donned for war
and for dances. The men of the Opaina, who succeed the
Menimehe on the east between the Miriti and Apaporis

* Dr. de Lacerda in his journal for July 22, 1798, describes just such a
manufacture of bark-cloth carried on by the Muizas, who traded this with
their neighbours the Maraves. See Land of Carembe, R.G.S., 1873, p. 71.
Loin-cloths made from the bark of the Ariocarps are also found among
the Semang of Kedah and other wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula. See
Skeat and Blagden, i. 143-4, ^57» Zl^> ®tc.

PLATE X.

BORO TRIBESMEN

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 75

Rivers, wear aprons after the same fashion as their neighbours.
The women wear nothing.

The Makuna, who dwell to the north of the Kuretu on the
other side of the Apaporis, affect a small belt of beaten bark,
from which depends in front a long apron of bast. The
Kuretu group, who inhabit both sides of the Japura to the
east of the Menimehe, improve upon the habit of their
neighbours. Over the loin-cloth the men wear a bast kilt,
or petticoat, which dangles as low as the ankles. When
walking, this garment is tucked up between the legs, some-
thing after the manner of a Malay sarang. The loin-cloth
is retained below.

All the tribes on the right or south bank of the Japura
follow the fashion of the Boro ; the men wear only breech-
cloths, the women go absolutely naked.

Thus it will be observed that the fashion of dress falls
into a definite geographical progression,^ and there is no
sudden change in passing from one neighbouring tribe to
another, although the tribal distinctions are very marked.

The natives wear no head-covering as a protection. In
a heavy rain an Indian on the trail will tear down a palm-
leaf and carry it over his head as we should an umbrella,
and he will adopt the same rough-and-ready though effective
means to shield himself from the sun.

No gloves are worn nor coverings for the feet. Boots of
any sort, in fact, would be impossible wear ; even Europeans
dispense with them. Still, it is not possible for the white
man to go through the forest bare-footed. Personally,
I used carpet slippers, which were washed every evening
after the day's trek, and dried during the night.^

If for ordinary everyday life the attire of the Indian is
of the slightest, on the occasion of a festival or a dance the
most elaborate sartorial preparations have to be made.
Wallace has enumerated no less than " twenty distinct
articles forming the feather head-dress," which is worn by

* A similar geographical progression has been noted among the women of
British New Guinea. See Williamson, The Mafulu, p. 28.

* Sandals known as alparagatas, with soles of plaited aloe-fibre, are
usually worn by travellers in the Amazons. These can be cleaned and
washed in the same way. See also Simson, p. 83.

76 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the Menimehe and the Nonuya, as well as by the Uaupes
Indians of whom he wrote.^ Then there are the feather arm-
lets— ruffles of bright-tinted plumage worn on the arm, — 2
wooden combs decorated with tufts of feathers, and curassow
down for the women, anklets and strings of rattles himg
round the legs, aprons of painted bark or belts of beads,
ear-rings, and necklaces, and, supreme vanity, there are the
elaborately-painted designs on the skin that are to the Indian
belle what the latest Paris '' creation " is to her civilised
sister.

According to Sir Everard im Thurn every tribe makes
its own feather head-dress after a special colour scheme.^
I did not find this to be the case with the Issa-Japura tribes.
Instead of making them according to rule, rather do they
make them according to luck. Whatever they can get in
the way of gay plumage, feathers of the parrot, the macaw,
or the toucan, especially the macaw, because its feathers
are the longest, be the colour what it may, is employed
indiscriminately. The effects are very brilliant, but there
is nothing made in these districts of such elaborate descrip-
tion as the gorgeous feather-cloaks manufactured by the
Napo Indians, which are veritable works of art. The Issa-
Japura tribes content themselves with a coronet of the
gayest breast-feathers, plumed with tufts of the long feathers
from the tail, all tied together with fibre thread.* The Boro
men on festive occasions also stick these long macaw feathers
into their arm-ligatures. The chief's head-dress is more
lavish than those of his warriors. The only boy I ever saw
wearing one was the young son of a chief. Women do not
wear the feather head-dress, but they attach the white down
of the curassow duck by means of some resinous substance —
such as rubber latex, or the milky secretion of the cow-tree
— for decorative purposes round their legs, between the

* Wallace, p. 351.

2 Feather ruffs are worn by Napo Indians, but not by these tribes.
2 im Thurn, p. 305.

* One feather head-dress in my possession is made with rough cotton
yarn, obtained presumably by barter, for none of these tribes make cotton
yarn themselves, and it is very rarely to be found among them. The
feathers are bound into the hank with very fine fibre.

PLATE XI.

WITOTO FEATHER HEAD-DRESSES,

1 he outer one is made on dark fibre, the inner on cotton yarn, which would appear

to have been obtained extra-tribally.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 77

ligatures. The result of this is to make the calves look
enormous. The men do not decorate with down. The
Indians are invariably most careful of their feather orna-
ments. At the end of a dance an old man, so Koch-Griinberg
noted, will come round and knock the dust off the feathers
with a long cane. I have myself observed Indians, when
overheated by their violent exertions at a dance, take off
their feather ornaments to preserve them from sweat. They
will never part with them, as they are communal, not per-
sonal, possessions, and I found they objected extremely to
any attempt I made to photograph them when wearing their
dancing feathers.

Combs for festive occasions are made of palm wood,
with spines of the Bacaba palm ^ for teeth, fixed in with
pitch, and are ornamented with feathers. These tribes do
not bind up their hair with corod string as do some of the
Uaupes Indians. 2 As may be judged from the illustrations,
hair-dressing fashions are not very varied. They range for
the men from quite short, as among the Muenane, to the long
hair fancied by some of the Boro. The majority wear their
hair slightly shorter than the women's, as a rule divided
down the middle, but occasionally cut straight across the
forehead in a shock fringe, reminiscent of the coster's. The
only variation among the women is a band, a strip of beaten
bark - cloth, occasionally seen among the Resigero (see
Plate XII. ).^ The Makuna wear their hair in pigtails.
The Karahone women keep their hair cropped short. In
the Boro comb of the illustration the black spines are set
between two pieces of cane, bound over with fibre, and
finished with basket-work of narrow cane strips, light and
dark, plaited into a regular pattern. The spines are 3J
inches long, and project to within a quarter of an inch of
the ends for about if inch on either side of the basket-work
back. This is 3J inches long and about half an inch thick.
The spines are neatly pointed at either end, and the whole

^ Oenocarpus distichus.

^ Wallace, p. 351.

» According to Koch-Griinberg the Yahabana and other Kuretu-
speaking tribes part the hair in the middle and plait it with bast. After
bathing, the hair is dried, combed, and arranged with a bandage.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

resembles very nearly — ^but for the uncommon effect of the
basket-work — a European comb of rather large and coarse
make.

The Andoke comb is also made with two pieces of cane,
slightly decorated with chevron incisions. It is a quarter
of an inch shorter than the Boro comb, and has spines on
one side only. These are set in pitchy matter between the
cane, and project seven -eighths of an inch. From the
hardened centre at one end depends a short tuft of fibre
string, to which feathers may be attached, and a longer
string from the other end is fastened to half a nutshell cut

Fig, 7.

as a cup, very similar to the tobacco pot, and made from the
same kind of nut. This is 2 J inches long by ij deep in the
centre, and ij across. It is black and highly polished.
This small cup is used to hold the latex employed for
depilatory purposes.

The Witoto comb is of much rougher construction, with
a thicker back. As with the Boro, the spines are set right
through, but instead of a section of cane, two sticks, round
bits of bamboo or reed are employed, and the whole
coated with pitch and tied with fibre string. The length
of the spines is a quarter of an inch longer than in the Boro
comb, but owing to the more clumsy back they project a
quarter of an inch less.

Having laid down the rough generalisation that all the

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 79

women of these tribes wear nothing, one has to begin the
hst of various exceptions that go to prove this rule. It is
true that they are nude to the extent of wearing no garment
of any description, but though naked they do not appear to
be so ; and it is a quahfied nakedness after all, qualified with
a variety of ornament, and, above all, of paint.

The Indian woman's ideas on the subject of clothing
are well illustrated by the behaviour of those women who
were of my own party. I gave them djibbehs, but, unless
I happened to be present and they feared my anger, they
never would wear them. For this attitude they advanced
five excellent reasons. If the sun shone the bright Hght
would damage the garment by causing the colour to fade.^
If it rained the djibbeh would get wet. If they were out in
the bush the thorns caught and tore the material. If they
were dancing the useless encumbrance of a dress would hide
all their carefully-executed adornments of paint. If they
were in the house a covering of any sort would be merely
ridiculous. There were obviously, then, few or no oppor-
tunities left to wear their new, but cumbersome and useless,
finery. Not that the Indian man or woman has no desire
for finery, quite the contrary, their ornaments are more
important than their dress, in fact their ornaments are their
dress.

The women of the Issa-Japura tribes wear a broad girdle
for a dance. 2 It is worn on no other occasions, and removed
immediately the dance is at an end. These dancing girdles
are made by the women of seeds or Brummagem beads if
such can be had. These are strung in about two-foot
lengths, and so arranged that when two or three dozen
strings are fastened into a broad fiat band the varying
colours make a bold and definite design. Like all these
Indian ornaments, they evince a fine artistic sense of colour-
ing and pattern. Beads are passed inwards from the Rubber
Belt from tribe to tribe. On account of the isolation of

^ Red was the favourite colour for a djibbeh. White ones were not
much liked.

* This corresponds with the bead tanga described by Wallace, but the
Uaupes' apron is " only about six inches square," and these girdles or gar-
lands are two feet long or more (Wallace, p. 343).

8o THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

these peoples, they cannot aspire to have fashions direct
from Birmingham, and novel patterns hardly seem to occur
to them. Designs must be symmetrical, and they are quite
content to copy the old-established ones. The colours vary,
but dark beads are the most sought after, dark blue being
more favoured than red. Black and white ones are the
most prized, but red and white is the combination usually
seen. Any woman may possess a girdle, and it is an in-
dividual, not a tribal, possession, the reverse of the custom
as regards the men's feather head-dresses. These girdles
are exceedingly handsome and wonderfully well constructed.
Beads are especially treasured by the Karahone women,
and they will wear chain upon chain, amounting in the aggre-
gate to a considerable weight. The number worn by a
Boro woman may be judged from the illustration (p. 154),
where the white appendage round the woman's neck is
made simply by stringing a few pounds of white beads
together. Both men and women wear necklaces. Besides
those made only of beads, they are made of tiger — ^that is
to say jaguar — teeth, and pig, tapir, marmoset, and cat
provide ivories that may be strung on curdna thread, besides
the necklace of accomplished vengeance, the string of human
teeth. With the exception of the latter, the teeth are bored
through the fang, and threaded at regular intervals, inter-
spersed with beads, bone, or Brummagem, tiny discs of bone
or shell, or brightly-coloured seeds. The pendants on the
necklaces seen in the illustrations are mostly coins, de-
preciated Chilian dollars as a rule.^ Those shown in the
various photographs were either given to the wearers by
me or had filtered through from the Rubber Belt ; a few
may have reached these primitive folk through the medium
of intertribal barter. In any case, they are always most
rare and cherished possessions. The pendants generally
worn are thin, flat, triangular pieces of beaten metal, obtained
either from coins or old brass cartridge cases. The rarity of
metal in these parts is marked by the small quantity allowed
for any one ornament, which is invariably of extreme thin-
ness, and hardly more than a featherweight. They are not
^ Value, I believe, about ninepence exchange or less.

PLATE XIII.

PLATE XV.

DUKAIYA (OKAINA) BEAD DANCING-GIRDLE

CONDOR CLAWS, USED BY ANDOKE MEDICINE MAN OF THE
UPPER JAPURA RIVER

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 8i

grooved, incised, or beaten into any design, but have merely
a smoothed surface. The edge is rounded, not sharp.
They are hung by a small beaded fibre string to the necklet
or more generally to the ear-plug.

The necklaces are matters of importance, for they dis-
close the status of the wearers. The skill of a warrior as
a hunter, his bravery in war, is proved by the character
of the teeth that circle his neck : the more successful the
hunter the finer the teeth he wears, the more numerous the
adornments of his family. Most to be envied in Indian
opinion is a string of human teeth, in that it is the witness
of revenge ; the teeth are from the head of an enemy, for a
man wears only the teeth of foes or game that he himself
has killed, and at his death they will be buried with him,
unless he fall at the hands of a foe, and his string of teeth go
to swell the spoils of the victor. Human teeth are never
bored, they are carefully bound into the necklace with fine
fibre string. The very insignificance of the small, worn,
discoloured teeth is in itself a sinister characteristic, pre-
supposes an object other than ornamental, adds a horrible
touch to the bizarre effect of all this barbaric bravery.

Necklaces of human teeth are frequently finished, if the
teeth are not sufiicient in number for the required length,
with rounded bits of bone. Other teeth are spaced out
with discs, some made of bone, others of shell obtained from
river mussels, or even with knots in the fibre thread. The
Boro necklace of human teeth in the accompanying illustra-
tion is made on cotton twist, an imported article very seldom
found among these tribes,^ though one of the Okaina beaded
garlands figured on Plate XIV. is also made on cotton string,
not palm -fibre as is customary. The handsome jaguar
tooth necklace loses some of its artistic values in a black-
and-white reproduction, which inevitably cannot do justice

^ So uncommon is it that I was under the impression that it was en-
tirely unknown until I examined the necklace in question very carefully
T after my return to England. Certainly I never saw any of these tribes
preparing cotton or making use of it in any way except in its natural
state to tip their blow-pipe arrows. String or yarn of any sort, except
the fibre thread, I always found to be absolutely unobtainable anywhere
throughout these districts.

82 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

to the creamy ivory, shading to rich browns, of the teeth,
making effective show against the red and blue of the beads,
the dull colourlessness of the pieces of bone. Some of the
teeth have a very primitive criss-cross grooving scratched
on the fang end, others have a more elaborate attempt at
a carved design. Each design differs, but the same idea
of involuted curves is traceable in all.

In cases where Indians are too poor or too isolated to
secure a sufficient supply of the Brummagem article, chains
are still made of the bright red and black seeds of a bush
plant, as they were before beads were obtainable ; or bits
of bone are employed, short lengths of cane or reed, or even
red berries, gay enough when fresh, but dull and crinkled
when they wither and fade. Beetles also are utilised for
ornament, and the fondness of the Indian for black is shown
in his rejection of such beetles as the gaudy-coloured Longi-
cornes and his preference for the shiny breastplate of a fat
squat beetle in black armour.^ These strung on fibre string
look like irregularly carved jet beads, but are far lighter, and
make a soft and hollow rattle when shaken.

Besides these chains and necklaces the natives are very
partial to a tight-fitting necklet of white beads bordering
either side of a row of small, flat, diamond-shaped pieces of
black wood, or the black shell of a nut, or gourd. These
necklets vary a trifle in width : some have the diamond
almost squared, they may have one, two, or three white
beads between the black points, but there is no greater
divergence than this from the stereotyped pattern. The
polished bits of wood, like the beetle cases, resemble jet ;
and the sharp distinction of black and white sets off the
native beauty, as a band of black velvet is supposed to put
the finishing touch to her fairer sisters.

A favourite ornament among the Boro and Witoto, and
also with some of the Napo tribes, is a bracelet of iguana
skin. To make these, a circular piece is cut off the creature's
tail, the ring of skin, varying in width from half to three
inches wide, is removed and drawn over the hand when
fresh and damp. This band dries tightly to the skin of

* Possibly one of the Histeridae mentioned by Bates, i. 211.

PLATE XVI.

NECKLACES OF HUMAN AND TIGER TEETH

PLATE XVII.

3. NECKLACE OF POLISHED NUTSHELLS. 2. LEG RATTLES OF BEADS AND
NUTSHELLS. 3. 4, 5, 6. BEAD NECKLACES. THE 'BLACK BEADS' ARE BITS OF
POLISHED NUTSHELL, THREADED BETWEEN WHITE BEADS.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 83

the arm, and will remain there in spite of frequent washings
for years. These lizard-skin bracelets can hardly be seen
in any of the photographs reproduced in these pages.
They are supposed to have certain magical properties, and
to endow the wearer with special strength and vigour.
For the same purpose children wear a black ring cut from
a nut. The diameter of the ring — ij inch outside and quite
a quarter of an inch less within — does not permit it to be
worn when the child grows up ; the arm always swells
roimd it, and obviously it must eventually be cut off, but
I cannot speak with any certainty as to how or when this
is done. The women's bracelets are made of beads when
they can be obtained, or of gay-coloured seeds. Those worn
by the Resigero woman in the illustration by page 80 are
made of threaded seeds, or of beads, wound round and round
the forearm with a turn or two of white beads at either end.
The central beads are usually dark red.

Rattks and feather ornaments are festooned on the legs
for a dance, but only the women wear the tight ligatures
that swell out the calf. Both men and women among all
these tribes wear ligatures, the men on the upper arm, just
below the shoulder, the women on the leg, below the knee
and again above the ankle. These ligatures are worn
extremely tight, and result not in atrophy of the limb, as
might be expected,^ but in an enormous swelling of the
muscles above or below them. The ankle ligatures some-
times reach half-way up the leg. They all vary greatly
in breadth, but this I consider to be a matter of personal
taste — or possibly personal skill — and not a tribal fashion
or distinction, except in so far as that the Witoto knee
ligatures are narrower than those of other tribes, and are
never so well made. But this confirms the idea of personal
skill deciding the pattern, for all Witoto work is cruder
than Boro or Okaina. Even the roughest of these ligatures,
however, is a marvellously neat piece of workmanship, the
more surprising when one discovers that only the fingers
are used in its manufacture. A ligature band is made of a
very fine fibre thread, and on the reverse side has the appear-

^ Pace Maw, p. 226.

84 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

ance of a knitted or crochetted fabric ; on the right side it
looks rather Hke a woven tapestry ribbon, with a sHghtly
raised pattern. But so far as I could ever see no implement
of any kind is employed in the making of these bands. ^
The fibre string is interworked and knotted with extra-
ordinarily skilled finger-work only. Sometimes the band
is decorated by a pattern of coloured lines, diagonals, and
diamonds slightly raised. In nearly every one that I saw
closely enough to examine the edge was corded, and the
end finished with a kind of buttonhole looping. The
ligatures shown in the illustration are Witoto and Boro-
made ones.^ The ends are finished with a line of open-
work stitches and a buttonholed or twisted edge. Through
the open spaces twisted fibre cords are run, and these pull
the band together exactly on the principle of a lady's silk
purse. They are tied in two knots. A tuft of cords, or
occasionally a bone or wooden disc, finishes off the man's
ligature, which is knotted in front. The women lace their
ligatures on, and fasten them very securely. I had to cut
those shown in Plate XIV. to get them off the wearer's legs.
The Yahabana and other Kuretu-speaking tribes wear their
armlets very tight, and the skin underneath is lighter in
shade than it is on the exposed portion of the limb, according
to Koch-Griinberg. This lighter skin will blister in the sun
if unprotected.

The leg rattles are made of polished nutshells, and garters
with beaded tassels and nutshells are fastened below the
knee. The nutshells vary in size and shape, though all are
approximately bell-like when cut and strung, with or with-
out beads, on fibre thread. They give a tinkling sound if
shaken, and for this reason, as they play a distinct part in
the native dances, they are dealt with in a later chapter
among the musical instruments. In addition to these

^ Belts of apparently similar minute plaiting are worn by the Mafula of
British New Guinea. These natives also wear armlets and leglets of the
same material, but not tightened to swell the muscles. The thread these
are made of is manufactured from vegetable fibre in the identical manner
employed by the Issa-Japura Indians (Williams, The Mafula of British
New Guinea, pp. 32, 53, 54).

2 Compare illustration with pictures of ligatures in D. Rannie's My
Adventures among South Sea Cannibals, pp. 80, 170, 179,

PLATE XVIII.

BORO LIGATURES

PLATE XIX.

BORO LEG AND ARM LIGATURES
WITOTO LEG LIGATURE

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 85

rattles strings of feather-tufted reeds or bits of bone are
also worn. The reeds, cane, or bones, are about three
inches long, with a small bunch of feathers secured to one
end by means of pitch. The other end is pierced, fibre
thread strung through, and the intervals between the reeds
are kept by means of knots.

Similar little bits of cane are worn in the ears, which are
bored by all these tribes at the age of puberty. These ear
ornaments are frequently decorated at one end with a tuft
of ga}^ feathers. These are very neatly arranged in some
cases ; a ring of fine blue feathers may surround a red tip.
They are fixed to the cane with latex or pitch. Orahone,
which simply means Big Ears,^ is a name given nowadays
to many distinctly different tribes who follow the fashion
of the Indians on the Uaupes and the Napo and insert
large wooden plugs into the lobes of their ears. The Orahone
and some Issa-Japura tribes — especially among the Boro-
speaking group — use a disc of cabbage wood. The Orahone
smear this with a red vegetable colouring matter, the Boro
fix an ornamented shell into the wood.

These wooden plugs are extremely light, about two and
five-eighth inches long, and three inches across at the widest
point, that is the front rim. This end is hollowed like a
shallow egg-cup, and the shell set in it is decorated with a
fine pattern done in black-and-white. In one earring in my
possession the shell, so far as I can judge, is a portion of some
hard, dark nutshell. The pattern is grooved, or scratched
on the shell, and filled in with a fine white clay. This gives
the effect of an elaborate black-and-white inlay. The shell
is secured in the hollow with pitch. The back part of the
plug that fits behind the ear is not decorated in any manner.

Very effective earrings are made with round discs of a
pearl-coated river-shell fastened to a short piece of bamboo
with pitch. The mother-of-pearl is of a deep blue colour,
and of a good quality. In shape these earrings are not
unlike certain kinds of toadstool with a thin stem and an
inverted cone head.

* The Spaniards called the Inca Orejones on account of the large studs
worn by them in the lobes of their ears. See Joyce, p. no.

86 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

With the Boro and other Indians near the Japura the
Up also is perforated for the insertion of an ornament, except
among the Witoto, who do not use the labret. This, as a
rule, is made of metal, if it is in any way possible to secure
some. Silver is occasionally seen, and brass is obtained
from old cartridge cases, that are beaten flat and rubbed
to shape.

Nose -pins are another fashionable adornment of the
forest Indians. The Makuna wear a long black pin, a palm-
spine, through the cartilage of the nose. The Yakuna also
wear a long pin, and the Muenane and Witoto women wear
nasal ornaments. The nose-pins of the Kuretu-speaking
tribes, Yahabana and others, must be somewhat of an
obstruction to the wearer, owing to their exaggerated
length, 30 centimetres. In the central Igara Parana district
the Boro, especially the women, insert feathers into small
holes made in the wing of the nose. Boring the algae is
peculiar to the Boro-speaking group of tribes, and to the
Resigero. The women bore holes in the top of the nostril,
into which they insert bits of quill to keep them open till such
times as a dance is held, when the quills are removed and
small ornaments with feathers are put in their place. No
other tribes have this fashion. The Saka, who are of the
same language-group as the Karahone, wear the bones of birds
instead of a palm nose-pin through the septum. Robuchon
confirms my observation that the septum of the nose only
is perforated by the Witoto in the upper Igara Parana
districts, and that a goose feather is then worn. He also
mentions the use of the labret, and the elongation of the
lobe of the ear. There are many varieties of ear ornaments,
but most of them are big and enlarge the lobes.

Among the Tuyuka the boys at the age of puberty burn
scars on their arms, but I have never seen scarification
among the Issa -Japura tribes ; ^ nor is there much tattooing.
The Menimehe, both men and women, tattoo the face and
breast. The designs show little artistic skill, and are all
done in straight lines. The patterns on the cheeks are

^ Wallace states that all the Indians " have a row of circular punctures
along the arm " (Wallace, p. 345). These tribes have nothing of the sort.

PLATE XX.

I & 3. BORO. 2. WITOTO* LIGATURES.

Note contrast ot texture

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS ^7

simply tribal marks.^ The breast patterns vary. On the

arms of these people I have seen rough representations of

a lizard tattooed as here illustrated. The incision is done

with the spine of a palm, and the black ^^^

residue from burnt rubber is rubbed into *^»^^^ ]^v

the puncture. This results in a blue ^

mark. None of these tribes have such

a practice as that described by Crevaux

of making chevron marks on a woman's

thighs to record the number of her male

children. 2 I know nothing of this or

any similar custom, but some of the

Boro living on the north of the Japura fig. 8.

have borrowed the idea of tattooing

from the Menimehe, and wear — both men and women — a

tribal mark below the cheek-bone, and sometimes a pattern

on the breast. These are the only two groups of tribes

among whom I ever saw any people tattooed.

But, if very few tattoo, all paint. The Karahone women
are as fond of paint as they are of beads, and use more
colours than other tribes. Their particular colour is purple.
As a rule the colours are red, yellow, black — a bluish black —
and white. The latter is secured from certain fruits. A
bright red, the commonest paint of all, is made from a
prickly burr, or nut, that is full of seeds and red matter.^
Black paint is obtained by using charcoal, or the juice of a
fruit,* and a species of Cissus has a fruit from which the
Indians get their blue paints. Ochre gives them yellow,
but the source of the purple paint I was unable to
discover.

Red is a favourite colour with all the tribes, and many
women daub their whole faces over with scarlet. This will
quite content them, and no further attempt at a design will
be made. A blue-black is also very often seen smeared on
in the same fashion, the juicy stain apparently being merely

^ Wallace describes the mark as " three vertical blue lines on the chin "
Wallace, p. 345), This is not correct; vide drawing.
^ Crevaux, p. 264.

' The Bixa Orellana (Spix and von Martius, p. 228).
* Genifa americana (Spix and von Martius, p. 228).

88 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

squeezed over the skin. Robuchon mentions a custom
among some Witoto tribes of covering the body with latex
and then sprinkhng it with black ashes. Hardenburg also
mentions the use of a resinous matter which is daubed on
by the Witoto.^ The reason for the former Robuchon
declared he could not divine. It was one of the secrets
of the dressing-table of the Kinene girls that he was not
prepared to fathom. Sometimes black ashes are so used,
and at other times yellow clay. The secret is not so pro-
found as the French traveller seems to have imagined. It
is evidently done for protective purposes, as babies in arms
are invariably treated in this fashion, women but seldom.
Occasionally a black juice is smeared over the face and neck,
under the jawbones. This I never thought was meant to be
decorative paint, but always concluded it was some manner
of skin tonic.

Among the Orahone, and also some of the Issa and
Japura Indians, the women cover their teeth and their
finger-nails with a black pigment.

The paint is never allowed to work off entirely ; fresh
designs are superimposed before the original has quite dis-
appeared. The women always paint themselves for a
dance, and dances are so frequent that before the coat of
paint is worn away another festivity will be in prospect,
and fresh decorations have to be considered. They also
paint on other occasions than a dance.

With regard to the designs the photographs give a truer
notion than any possible description of the variations and
tribal fashions. The independent Andoke have no fixed
pattern, but their lines appear to be more flowing. A
good example is the fourth figure in Plate XXI. The body
in this case was coated with a purple paint, leaving only
a broad seam down the middle unpainted. This design is
not seen elsewhere ; it is peculiar to the Andoke. In one
dance I saw they painted themselves with what were in-
tended to be representations of their Witoto neighbours.
I saw also the Andoke got up for a dance covered with
weapons painted in my honour, boots, trousers, and dresses

* Hardenburg, p. 138.

PLATE XXI.

ANDOKE GIRLS

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 89

all suggested. Purple paint predominated, and the effect
was a rough copy of my own apparel in paint.

The patterns are regular ; the most highly finished ones
are executed with an eye to the lines of the figure, and some,
as for example those shown in the accompanying group of
Okaina women, are of complicated if crude design. The
Okaina designs are certainly the most elaborate that I met
with, but it is to be noted that in no case do the women
attempt to hide, disguise, or paint that portion of the body
which most peoples are the first to cover, and which even
among these tribes is never exposed by the males.^

The effect of paint on the legs of women wearing tight
ligatures is, as Robuchon very aptly remarked, to give
them the semblance of small balcony pillars. Among the
less particular — the Witoto especially being the more lax
in this as in all other matters — ^the regular designs are not
attempted, and paint is daubed crudely on the body in
smears and splotches, with a result that is bizarre in the
extreme.

The men are painted by their women before a dance, but
never in the intricate patterns and variety of colour used
by the ladies of the community themselves.

On one occasion among the Okaina three of the old
women of the tribe were sent to me with purple paint, to
paint me for the festivity. The Andoke men seem more
given to painting themselves than the men of other tribes,
and always use purple paint. A common device is a
lizard, some nine inches long, painted on the back and in
front on the middle of the chest. But painting is not a
universal custom among the men as with the women. I
do not remember, for instance, to have seen a Witoto man
painted.

^ " Covering, if not used as a protection from the climate, owes its origin,
at least in a great many cases, to the desire of men and women to make
themselves mutually attractive " (Westermarck, p. 211). " Clothing was
first adopted as a means of decoration rather than from motives of decency.
The private parts were first adorned with the appendages that were after-
wards used by a dawning sense of modesty to conceal them " (Johnston,
The River Congo, p. 418).

CHAPTER VI

Occupations — Sexual division and tabu — Tribal manufactures — Arts and
crafts — Drawing — Carving — Metals — Tools and implements — No tex-
tile fabrics — Pottery — Basket making — Hammocks — Cassava-squeezer
and grater — Pestle and mortar — Wooden vessels — Stone axes —
Methods of felling trees — Canoes — Rafts — Paddles.

Life in Amazonia to the man is occasionally strenuous,
frequently a veritable dolce far niente ; to the woman it
is a ceaseless round of toilsome duties, broken only by the
excitement of preparation for, and participation in, a tribal
dance. The division of occupations between the sexes is
possibly uneven, but very certainly strict. In many cases
it amounts to a tabu,^ and as a rule the reason for this division
is either apparent or confessed. It is absolutely a question
of sex. To men appertain defensive measures, all that calls
for physical strength and skill, war, the chase, the manu-
facture of weapons, the preparation of certain poisons and
drinks, especially those that are used ceremonially. Men
paddle the canoes, except in extreme cases, when a sufficiency
of men is not forthcoming, and women perforce must lend
their aid. They cut the wood and build the houses. They
climb the trees to gather fruit, clear the plantations, and
turn the soil. Woman is the housewife, the mother, and the
cook, but she is also the agriculturalist and the maker of all
purely domestic implements. She manufactures the ham-
mocks, the rough pottery, and most of the baskets, although

* The result of this is that a traveller is forced to have vi^omen as well
as men in his escort, or he would find that half the services required would
not be rendered him. For instance, no male Indian will prepare food,
neither will he wash clothes, nor clean the cooking vessels. This refers
to the untouched districts, and must not be confused with the forced
" willingness " of the Rubber Belts.
90

PLATE XXII.

WITOTO BASKETS OF SPLIT CANE AND FIBRE.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 91

it would not be considered derogatory on the part of the
man to lend a hand if necessary.

Besides this sexual differentiation various tribes have
their special manufactures in which they excel their
neighbours. The Menimehe are known as great pottery
workers. The Karahone are renowned for their poisons.
The Boro specialise on mat-making, plaiting, the manufac-
ture of ligatures, and the preparation of blow-pipes. The
Witoto hammocks are better than those of other tribes.
Trade in any organised form is non-existent, it is true, but
articles pass, as I have already described, irregularly by
personal barter and exchange of gifts to other tribes ; and
in this fashion the poison of the Karahone reaches tribes
unknown to the makers, and beads made in Birmingham
filter down by many and devious routes even to these
isolated wilds. Over fifty years ago Wallace estimated that
some thousands of pounds' worth of trade goods passed up
the Uaupes yearly,^ and this accounts for the fact that
tribes north of the Japura are better supplied than those of
the south. The best articles for barter I found were axes,
knives, combs — especially scurf-combs — and Brummagem
beads. Cloth and fowling-pieces are not valued except
in the Rubber Belt ; the less sophisticated Indian of the
backwoods has no manner of use for them : cloth is less
ornamental than paint, and the scatter-gun only frightens
the game and lessens the kill.

Indian arts and crafts are neither numerous nor particu-
larly complex ; indeed arts — with the exception of music
and dancing — are almost unknown. There are no rock
pictures in the Issa -Japura valleys, such as those executed
by the Indians in so many other parts of the Americas, but
then there are no rocks. I have occasionally among the
Andoke and the Boro seen pictures of a rude type on the
supports of the houses, and on the four large central posts
of the big maloka ; or these may be roughly carved. There
is carving also on some of the dancing staves. But these
people have no great use for colour and line beyond the
ornamentation of their bodies, and in a lesser degree of their
* A. R. Wallace, p. 349.

92 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

pottery. They make no attempt to use drawing for in-
formative purposes. Elsewhere Indians have shown them-
selves skilful map-makers,^ but none of these tribes could so
much as draw a rough chart of their own district. Yet this
district to them represents the whole world. They do not
realise that there can be any other people but themselves
and the half-dozen tribes or so who happen to be in their
immediate vicinity, and always regarded it as a huge joke
on my part when I talked of the sea and the vast countries
beyond.

One tribe of Witoto do possess a drawing on bark-cloth
that is their equivalent of a map of the world. This tribe
when I visited them were located near the source of the
Karaparana, and the " map " was so very exceptional an
acquisition that it was known and talked about by far dis-
tant tribes who had never seen either it or its possessors.
In fact, it was one of the wonders of the universe, to be
bragged about to any stranger who was ignorantly unaware
of its existence. Nothing I could offer would persuade these
Witoto to part with their treasure, and unfortunately I
was unable to obtain a photograph of it. My too evident
interest aroused suspicion, and on this account I was unable
to study it clearly, as I saw it but for a moment, and that in
a dark house before my eyes were accustomed to the gloom.
It was almost immediately hidden for fear I should seize it.
This map was made on beaten bark about two feet square.
The centre was divided into about a dozen squares. In each
square very crude human figures were represented fighting,
planting, or hunting in their own tribal territory. These
were the " nations " of the world. The dividing lines were
of red vegetable pigment. The " nations," so far as I could
see, were fighting amongst themselves. In the margin were
the sun, a moon, and many stars. I saw nothing to designate
spirits or Taife. So ancient was this map, handed down
from generation to generation, that divine origin or use was

^ E. B. Tylor notes that the savage is often skilled in map-making as
a form of picture-writing {op. cit. p. 90), and quotes Prescott for the exist-
ence of maps in Peru before Europeans reached South America (Prescott,
Peru, i. 116). Ancient maps or books like " rolled up palm leaves " (Ratzel,
ii. 169).

PLATE XXIII.

PLATE XL.

OKAINA GIRLS

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 93

assumed. It was said to be the world in the days when the
Good Spirit appeared to man.^

SHght carvings, such as can be seen in the accompanying
illustration, are done at times on the teeth that they string
for a necklace ; and among the Witoto I twice met with
examples of figures carved in wood. The two figures in the
first instance, a nude man and woman, were life-size. They
were painted white with designs in black and red to represent
the paintings done for a dance. These figures were placed
on either side of the door jambs outside, and were the only
two of the kind I ever saw or heard of in the country. They
were greatly prized by their owners, and spoken of by neigh-
bours as notable achievements. No one had any idea who
made them, or when they were made, and if questioned
simply said they always had been.

In the second instance the figure was a small female doll.
It was in the possession of the daughter of a chief of the
Itoma Gurra tribe of Witoto, a young girl, but who had
arrived at maturity. The Indians said the doll was for the
children to play with, but such toys are extremely scarce.
This one was about eight inches high, and was made of some
very light wood, painted white, with the organs that denoted
the sex marked in red.^ The toy was not regarded in any
way as an idol, nor was there any suggestion of magical
powers attaching to it. To secure such a toy is almost
impossible, but this doll I did obtain. Unfortunately I
showed it to an Indian afterwards, who told me that his
tribe made such things, and that he could get me a pair to
it. I gave him the toy, but never saw him or the doll again.
This was unusual. As a rule when an Indian says he will
do anything he keeps his word.

Smelting, or any description of metallurgy, cannot be
looked for among the inhabitants of a country so singularly
devoid of all metalliferous deposit or formation. Metal

1 See Chap. XVIII.

* Pudenda maioris statuae muliebris nigra, labia maiova rubra picta
sunt ; sed et in maiore et in minore statua vagina tarn profunda perforata est
ut iransitum ah vulva ad uterum suggerere videatur. Scrotum statuae virilis
nigrum, praeputium rubrum, pictum est ; membrum autem ipsum, quamvis
quiescens, erectum tamen est et sic ad abdomen parallelum.

94 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

there is practically none in the aboriginal homes of the
natives, and whatever of it is received, be it but a trousers-
button, becomes at once an heirloom and a treasure. Their
only method of working metal when obtained is to heat and
hammer it into various forms and shapes for ornaments.
Weapons and implements alike must be contrived of other
materials. In normal conditions man, without the know-
ledge to work ore, turns to stone for substitute, but conditions
in Amazonia are, as has already been shown, abnormal.
If there is no metal neither is there any stone. It is so rare
that it is looked upon as almost sacred,^ and implements
fashioned of it are not made nowadays by the tribes, but those
in use are handed down from one generation to another.
North of the Japura, where quartz can be obtained, at least
by barter, it is used for knives, arrow-heads, spear-points,
and cassava-graters ; but these Issa -Japura Indians have to
content themselves with wood and palm-spines, and have
only their ancestral stone axes. 2 These are constructed
in true " prehistoric " manner ; the stones have been
and are fastened to their wooden hafts with fibre lashings
fixed by vegetable pitch.^ The Indian cannot say from
whence they came, there is no memory of their makers ;
they are, in fact, looked upon as veritable gifts from the
gods.

Wooden knives are constructed from such hardwood
trees as the black ironwood. These knives and stone axes
will be used by Indians even more in touch with civilisation
than these tribes, possibly because the Brummagem trade-
goods knife and hatchet has been proved useless for practical
wear.

1 See Chap. XVII.

* Keane tells of the Mojos valley natives that so uncommon is stone
in that district that if a man set out on a journey to the uplands where
stone is procurable he would be asked to bring some back as a curiosity
(Keane, p. 12). For some use of stone implements of the past still employed
among present-day peoples, see Mitchell, Past in the Present, p. 12, etc. ;
Routledge, With a Neolithic People ; Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes
of Central Australia, pp. 592-4, etc.; Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of
the Malay Peninsula, i. 242, 296.

' Spruce mentions a white pitch obtained from Idea trees. I never saw
any white pitch. These Indians use only black.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 95

For boring purposes the Indians make an instrument
like a bradawl T with a capybara's tooth, and a paca tooth
is used for scraping. With these simple implements the
labour involved in producing such a weapon as the blow-
pipe is enormous. But these are all the tools the Indian
craftsmen possess.

Manufactures among the Issa-Japura tribes are not
numerous. These Indians have no textile fabrics ; they
neither spin nor weave ; everything is done by finger- work^
and the local substitutes for woven goods are beaten bark-
cloth and netted or plaited palm-fibre. This, as a rule, is
in its natural colour, as very little dye is ever employed.
There is no leather working. The only use made of the skins
of animals, I ever discovered, was that some Menimehe tribes
had large round shields of tapir hides, two to five hides
superimposed one on another ; ^ the medicine -men make
garments of the same leather ; while the medicine-pouch is
often made of the unshorn skin of the jaguar. Leather
thongs are sometimes employed for tying purposes, such as
securing an axe-haft, and on the north of the Japura to
string a bow, but the ubiquitous fibre and liana are in more
general use.

Glass is unknown to the Indian, but every tribe makes
its own pottery. Earthenware pots are used by all Indians
for cooking. The best are manufactured by the Menimehe
women, and are distinguished by the red and black colouring.
This is obtained by the use of certain juices extracted from
the bark of a tree. These handsome, well-finished pots
are a great article of barter, and are exchanged for other
products of friendly tribes. Thus they are to be found at
far distances from where they are made on the northern
bank of the Japura. It amounts to a trade, distinct if
unorganised.

Pottery-making is the sole province of the women in any
tribe, earthenware appertaining to the culinary department
which is their special sphere. The pots, entirely made and
shaped by hand, when finished are beautifully symmetrical,
though the Indian potters possess nothing approximating

^ Some tribes near the Napo also use circular shields of tapir hide, p. 116.

96 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

to a wheel. 1 Squatting on the ground the women work
and mould the clay, and rub it between their hands into
long cylinders very much like plug tobacco. These are
coiled round and round and kneaded into a previously con-
structed shape ; or the women will prepare a circular hole in
the ground and mould the clay into that. The plastic coils
are then worked round with any hard thing that is handy —
a bone or a piece of wood. When the vessel is built up to
the size intended it is carefully rubbed before it is set out
to dry in the sun. Finally, hot ashes are heaped over the
pots, which are baked slowly and polished afterwards.

The clay used is commonly to be found on the river-
banks, and with it the Indians mix wood ashes, either to
stiffen it or, as Crevaux suggests,^ to render the finished
article more porous, so that its contents are kept cool by
evaporation. This pottery is known as caraipe ware, from
the fact that the ashes of the caraipe bark are preferred for
its manufacture.^ In some districts vessels of even a very
large size are made of it,^ but I never saw any big pots
either imported or made locally in the Issa-Japura valleys.
The large vessels used for making kawana by these tribes
consist merely of huge strips of the inner bark of the tree,
riveted together with thorns or spines, and set upright
on a hard earthen surface ; or else a section of a great
tree trunk is hollowed out to make a trough. Large fiat
plates to bake the cassava cakes on are made of earthenware,
but very often only wooden platters are used.

Women are not the tribal potters alone ; they are also
the chief basket-makers, though on occasions the men will
make baskets. Both Karahone and Boro Indians excel in
basket-making, though all tribes are skilful enough at it.
If you give an Indian anything to carry he never dreams
of holding it in his hands if it will allow of other carriage.
He either winds a strip of bark-fibre round his head to
make a sling in which to place it, or, if it were anything

^ The use of the potter's wheel was even unknown to the Incas (Joyce,
p. 193). 2 Crevaux, p. 193.

* The caraipe tree is, according to Spruce and Bentham, one of the
Licania genus of the Chrysobalaneae order (Spruce, i. 13).

* Spruce, i. 14.

PLATE XXIV.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 97

that did not admit of easy adjustment — as, for instance,
fruit — ^he gathers some green palm leaves, and in about five
minutes has plaited them, on a foundation of two rods, into
a long and deep square basket, which is thrown away at the
end of the march. Such quickly made baskets are con-
tinually in use, but 'the tribes also construct more elaborate
ones that can be utilised for more than immediate purposes.
In every maloka may be seen baskets of plaited bark-fibre
and of plaited cane,^ usually white, but sometimes with an
interwoven and regular pattern in black cane. The Resigero
make bottle-shaped baskets as receptacles for edible ants.
A large basket is carried on the back, slung from the
forehead with the customary band of bark-fibre.

Quite as important as the pottery is the manufacture of
hammocks. 2 This again is done by the women of the
tribes. It is woman's, that is to say light, work. All these
tribes make them on the same principle and in the same way,
the only difference in the hammocks of different tribes is
the spacing of the cross- threads. This, according to Hamil-
ton Rice, is a tribal distinction, each group of tribes having
an individual spacing.^ The material used is curana string
or palm-fibre. To prepare this the women take the pinnate
leaflets of the Chambiri palm * and fold over each strip at

* The Cerropia peltata, according to Spix and Martins, p. 259.

' Tylor mentions the hammock as one of " the inventions which it
seems possible to trace to their original districts," and states that it has
spread from South America and the West Indies " far and wide over the
world, carrying with it its Haitian name, hamac" (op. cit. p. 175). It is
interesting to note in this connection that a hammock is known as a
hamaka among the Yakuna ; the Tariana call it hamaka or amaka ; and
the Yavitero Indians call it aimaiha (Koch-Griinberg, Aruak-Sprachen
Nordwestbrasiliens und der angrenzenden Gehiete, p. 65). The Bare Indians
call it mi ; the Baniwa bidzaha or hisali ; the Siusi pieta or piete ; the
KatapoUtani change the t to d and have pieda ; the Kurutana call it
makaitepa ; the Uarekena say soalita (Koch-Griinberg, op. cit.) ; while the
Pioje call hammocks jangre (Simson, p. 268). The Witoto word is kinai
and the Boro gwapa.

' Hamilton Rice gives the distances between the meshes as the space
of thumb to little finger stretch for the Witoto, palm-length for the Kara-
hone, four fingers for the Cubbeo (p. 700). I knew the spacing differed,
but never heard that it was a tribal distinction.

* The palm employed is, according to Bates, an Astrocaryum (Bates,
ii. 209). Wallace and im Thurn mention the Mauritia flexuosa (A. R.
Wallace, p. 342 ; im Thurn, pp.283, 290), which, according to Spruce, "seems
confined to the submaritime region " (Spruce, i. 15). He gives Bromelia

98 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

its broadest part. They grip it tightly and shred it down
with the thumb and forefinger. The fibre thus procured is
then twisted into a cord by roUing it tightly and hard against
the naked thigh.

To make a hammock a woman takes a length of this
fibre string and turns it round, backwards and forwards
between two posts set in the earthen floor of the maloka.
Cross strings of the same material are then tied at the regula-
tion intervals and knotted across, from string to string, to
the opposite side. No implement of any kind is used ; the
two posts are the only framework, and the whole construc-
tion is carried out entirely by the women's fingers without
any artificial aid.

The cassava-squeezer, that essential complement to an
Indian household, is another plaited or basket-work article.
The squeezer, which is common to the Boro and all the
tribes north or south, except the Witoto, the Muenane, and
the Nonuya, consists of a long cylinder with a loop at both
ends. One is attached to a rafter, and the other to a stout
stick, on which a woman sits, and thereby pulls upon the
cylinder. The manioc is inserted through the open end
before the weight is applied, and the elastic structure widens
out to permit the soaked and grated roots to be packed in,
till it resembles nothing so much as a well-filled Christmas
stocking ; but when pressure is brought to bear on the lower
end the cylinder gradually elongates, and thereby contracts,
crushing the roots to a pulp, from which the poisonous juice
drains away.

The material used to make these squeezers appears to be
a species of cane, but is said to be the bark of a palm tree.^
It is cut into narrow strips and closely plaited into an elastic
bottle some seven to ten feet long, and not more than about
six inches wide when open. Instead of this cylinder the
Witoto use a long web, a rectangular strip about ten inches
wide of plaited bark-fibre, about an inch wide. This they
wind round the grated manioc after the manner that putties

karatas, ii. 520. Spix and Martius give the Tucuma palm {Astyocaryum
vulgar e) and others of the same genus (Spix and Martius, p. 248).
1 " A species of Desmoncus " (A. R. Wallace, p. 336).

PLATE XXV.

OKAINA GROUP
Note Coca pestle and mortar.

GROUP OF OKAINA WOMEN

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 99

are adjusted on the leg. The tighter they twist the pHable
web the greater the pressure upon the crushed roots, and the
juice is thus wrung out of them.

The grater that is used to scrape the manioc roots, before
they are placed in the squeezer, is a wooden implement
made by the Indian women themselves.^ • (t' is a flatVval-.
The one in the illustration measures i6|\ in Che's ^by,5;|iT)chfes.' _
The wood is of a bamboo type set v/ith short black paliti- '
spines about an eighth of an inch apart, thicker at one end
than the other, but arranged in no regular patterrt Triijo^
spines are fixed into the wood arid "project about an eighth
of an inch above it. Those in which qr^artz stones ^rer'fj).-,
serted instead of spines are a valuable- cominrrcjal c^iii'-'
modity north of the Japura. ' - - , , .

I never saw manioc crushed, as Robuchon described,
with a pestle and mortar ; but these articles are in frequent
use, especially for the preparation of coca and tobacco,
so they are items of importance in an Indian inventory. A
mortar is easily improvised from the hollowed trunk of a
tree, and such a small mortar, with a long heavy pounder,
is shown on the right of the photograph of a group of
Okaina Indians. It is being used to pound coca (Plate
XXV.). The pestles are made of some heavy wood, such as
red wood or mahogany, and the lower trunk of the peach
palm, 2 or a block of iron wood makes a very solid mortar.
The peach-palm trunk is hollow, that is to say, it has a very
hard shell filled with soft pith that can be scraped out with
little difficulty.^ Some of these mortars are of great size.
Spruce gives the measurements as five to six feet high, but
none I saw were more than four feet.

Not only are mortars and troughs made from the tree
trunks, but bark is cut into long strips to make smaller
vessels, shallow concave trays not unlike the Arunta hard-
wood pitchi^ The method is ingenious by which the bark

^ Women make both cassava-squeezers and graters. This may be a
coincidence, as I have seen men making the mats for the doorways, usually
women's work.

* Gullielmia speciosa. ^ Spruce, ii. 447,

* Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 668-9, and
Across Australia.

100 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

is stripped from the trunk, or the tree is felled, for the prin-
ciple in each case is the same. Round the trunk of the
selected tree a number of small holes are made, or, if only a
portion is to be removed, the trunk is notched at the
required distances. The edge of the stone axe is inserted in
the notch, and the slip of wood is levered up with it until it
sphts away at the lov/er notch ; or, if the tree is to be
(eiled, the holes are widened into grooves that are deepened
round the trunk till it gives way — a somewhat slow process,
but a sure one.

In this fashion the Indians cut down the trees from which
their boats are to bv-^ made. A tree is felled, preferably a
cedar, 1 cind the liuiik is hollowed out for the length required,
which varies, but may be as much as 20 feet, though
the breadth will not exceed 18 inches. To hollow the
trunk the Indians bore holes in the wood in order to secure
the proper thickness, and then slit off pieces with their
stone axes. These are kindled into a fire to which logs
of wood are added. This burns out the required cavity,
and when the trunk is very hot the burning embers are
scraped away and the burnt trunk is forced apart, which is
done by gradually inserting longer logs that are hammered
into place. This is a job that needs to be done deftly and
quickly, or the cooling wood will soon either contract too
much or break at the strain. The heat also causes the ends
to curve upwards, so that the bow and the stem of the boat
will rise higher than the centre. Such a '* dug-out '* is a
heavy concern, often with a specific gravity greater than
that of water.

These boats belong to the community, and are not many
in number. They are never left on the bank, nor are they
kept in the maloka, but are hidden in the bush near the river-
banks. The paddles, however, are kept in the house, stored
overhead on the rafters.

^ Any hard wood may be used, but cedar makes the best canoe. Hamil-
ton Rice says cachicama (Rice, p. 691). Spruce mentions " a heavy laurel,
probably Paraturi," used by the Tussari for making their cascos (Spruce,
i. 413). Bates mentions the Itauha amarello, " the yellow variety of the
stone-wood" (Bates, ii. 117). But all trees will not do, for some will not
open properly when they are fired (Andre, pp. 241-2).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS loi

All the tribes of the Issa and Japura valleys make these
rather clumsy craft, but it is possible that the original idea
is not indigenous, and that the autochthonic boat is the
temporary canoe made from the hollowed trunk of the bulge-
stemmed palm.^ These canoes can be fashioned in an hour
or two. The soft pulp is removed easily with a knife, or
even may be crushed up with the fingers, but the bark is
very hard, and the bulging portion of the trunk is shaped
already for the craft. The ends are stiffened with clay,
and the improvised canoe is ready for use, and is quite
sufficient for casual purposes — to cross a river when too deep
to ford or too wide to bridge, — and being of no permanent
value it may be left to drift away down-stream when used.^

Spruce mentions tribes who cannot make canoes, and have
to construct rafts to cross any main river ; ^ but rafts are
not used on the Issa or Japura streams except by the rubber-
workers. They make them of trunks of light wood lashed
with liana or withes, with a rail at the side, but such a
construction is unknown to those Indians who have not met
with the " civilised " invaders from the Rubber Belts. The
Catanixi, so Wallace states, make canoes of the bark of trees
stripped off in one sheet, ^ but I never saw an5rthing approach-
ing the " birch-bark " canoe, though some of the ** civilised "
Indians use a montaria, a built boat that is certainly not
indigenous.

The canoes are propelled with paddles from four to five
feet long, cut from the solid block of wood, elongated in the
blade, not rounded, as is universal on the main Amazon
river. They may be decorated with roughly painted de-
signs. Indians always paddle in unison, sometimes on
alternate sides, sometimes three together on one side and
three on the other. They face the way they are going,
as one would in a *' Canadian '* or " Rob Roy," and the
man in the bow steers. When two men paddle a large canoe
both will sit forward and paddle from the bow.

^ Iriartea ventricosa.

' This is said to be the only kind of canoe used by the Auhishiri (cf.
Simson, p. 199).

' Viz. the Maca, the Guaharibo, and the Guahibo (Spruce, i. 477).
* Wallace, p. 358.

CHAPTER VII

Agriculture — Plantations — Preparation of ground in the forest — Paucity
of agricultural instruments — Need for diligence — Women's incessant
toil — No special harvest-time — Maize the only grain grown — No use
for sugar — Manioc cultivation — Peppers — Tobacco — Coca cultivation
— Tree-climbing methods — Indian wood-craft — Indian tracking — Ex-
aggerated sporting yarns — Indian sense of locality and accuracy of
observation — Blow -pipes — Method of making blow -pipes — Darts —
Indian improvidence — Migration of game — Traps and snares —
Javelins — Hunting and fishing rights — Fishing — Fish traps — Spearing
and poisoning fish.

Apart from the industries already dealt with, the occupa-
tions of the South American Indians of these parts consist
in agricultural pursuits, hunting, fishing, making war, and
holding festival. They are not a pastoral people and
have no cattle ; even the domestic pig is unknown, fowls
are never seen, and dogs only exist in their wild state in
the forest. There they are numerous enough, dun in
colour, with ears erect. These Indians do not keep or
train them, though some of the tribes away from this
district have hunting dogs.^

The greater part of the agricultural work falls, as has
been seen, to the lot of the women, though the preliminaries
— the heavier work of clearing, cutting, and breaking up the
untouched soil — are undertaken by the men. Each tribal
house stands in the midst of a small clearing. In front is
the big dancing ground, for though the dancing proper takes
place inside the maloka, this outer dance clearing is used
for the purpose of assembly, and for effective entries.
Near by are the cultivated plots that belong to the chief.
The Indian with his own private lodging in the bush, or

^ For example, the Zaparo (Simson, pp. 169, 295) ; the Uaupes Indians
(Wallace, p. 349).

102

PLATE XXVI.

1. INDIAN PLANTATION CLEARED BY FIRE PREPARATORY TO

CULTIVATION

2. VIEW ON AFFLUENT OF THE KAHUINARI RIVER

/>/ ^ ^

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 103

any married Indian, — and all marry when they come to
man's estate — has his special plantation patch by his
country-house, if he has one, somewhere in the neighbour-
hood of the tribal house if he is content with only his quarters
therein. But no plantations are made actvally surrounding
the maloka ; they are perhaps half a rr ae away, for, as a
rule, the house stands alone. Sometimes a man's planta-
tion will be two days' journey from the house of assembly,
in which case a " country-house " is a necessity. The tribal
plantations belong to the chief, as he, having all the un-
attached women, is better able to cultivate them.

To prepare the plots of ground the smaller trees are
felled, the larger ones are burnt. The stumps of trees, cut
about four feet above the ground, decay with some rapidity,
and, directly the branches are dry enough to bum, fire is
brought out and the clearing made into a gigantic bonfire,
or rather series of bonfires, for the always damp wood will
never do more than smoulder, but it is sufficient to destroy
the brushwood and the tangle of creeping plants. There is
then a savannah, a clearing such as is shown in the illustration
(Plate XXVI.), a wilderness of charred posts and vegetable
ashes which make most excellent manure. The ground is
then broken up with wooden clubs, and therewith the men's
labour is at an end.^ Henceforward their women take
charge of the plantation — ike the Witoto call it before it is
planted ; it is akpho after planting.

The Indian plantation is no orderly market-garden. To
begin with, the women have nothing but the roughest wooden
implement, a wedge-shaped stake, with which to dig, and
rake, and hoe. The ground is always uneven and broken ;
the charred remnants of the original vegetation are left to
crumble beside the young growth, and the cultivated seed-
lings have to struggle for space and air with quick-growing
wild things, forest growths and creepers that encroach on
every side, and would speedily reclaim any cleared portions
of the unconquerable bush were it not for the incessant
diligence of the women. They go there daily straight from

^ Among other tribes this is not always the case. Manioc and banana
cultivation with the Rucuyens is carried on by the men (Ratzel, ii. 128).

104 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the morning bath, and keep up a constant chattering as
they plant the cuttings of manioc, or tend to the pine-apples
and the sugar-cane, while the men take to their canoes,
or go a-hunting in the bush in company. I have never
seen single Indians hunting or walking in the forest. For
obvious reasons they never venture far afield by themselves,
or even in very small parties.

Sowing is done during the rainy season, but beyond the
fact that things then grow faster than when it is compara-
tively drier, there is no especial harvest time. Crops grow
and ripen all the year round. The Indians are not grain-
growing people. Rice is unknown,^ and the only grain
that is sown at all is maize. This, though much cultivated
by the Kuretu, and by tribes on the Tikie, is not grown
in any quantity by Indians south of the Japura. What
there may be is very small. Coca, manioc, and tobacco
are the most universally cultivated. The Witoto grow
a little sugar-cane and it is occasionally found growing
wild, but in very few places. Originally, I imagine, it
was imported. The Indians do not use it for sugar, as
sweet things do not seem to appeal to their palates, and
" beer " is unknown. Half- wild pumpkins and plantains
are to be found in most plantations ; pines,^ bananas,
yams, papaws, sweet potatoes, and mangoes are found
cultivated more or less. The yellow fruit of the guaran^
is prized by these Indians, especially the Boro, and is used
here by them in the preparation of a stimulating drink ^
similar to that in use on the Rio Negro.* The wild cacao,^
though not common, is seen about here, but the tribes do
not cultivate it. Manioc, which is also known as cassava,^
is a plant that grows throughout the tropical regions of
America, and in the West Indies. It is known also in

* There is a wild species on some of the rivers, but the Indians make
no use of it (cf. Bates, i. 194).

^ Anauana sativa (Wallace, p. 336). ^ Spruce, i. 180-81,

* Among the Issa- Japura tribes it is rather sustaining than stimulating,
i.e. it is not fermented.

^ Theobroma, the food of the gods (Spruce, i. 79).

*• I would suggest that manioc is the true name for the plant, cassava
for the " bread " made therefrom. Mandiocca is only American-Spanish
for manioc.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 105

Africa, and has been introduced by the white man into
some of the Pacific Islands.

The manioc is planted by the women about July or
August, and according to Indian belief manioc can only be
propagated by replanting slips of the old growth after it
has been lifted up and the tuberous root removed. As it
cannot reproduce itself in this fashion in its wild state,
presumably it will grow from young tubers, or seed, but,
according to Bates, it is not found wild in the Amazon basin.^
The ground is hoed by the women, and scraped into rough
furrows. Cuttings of the manioc plant are set in these in
httle holes. Eight months after planting the root is ready
for use. It is large, fleshy, and very heavy for its bulk,
each tuber weighing from half a pound to two or three
pounds, and even more. It has been said of the variety
known as the great manioc that a root will weigh as much
as forty-eight pounds. ^ The ground will only carry two
crops, so a fresh patch must be broken up after the second
harvest. Indians will, however, always return to planta-
tions no longer in use, on account of the different palm
fruits which continue to grow wild there after they have
once been cultivated ; but the disused plots will never
be tilled again for plantation, they are only visited for this
purpose of securing the fruit.

Throughout the forest peppers are very common and
plentiful. Some of the bushes grow to a height of ten
feet. There are many varieties,^ and peppers are grown,
or allowed to grow, in patches on all the plantations.

I have said that the women are the agriculturalists and
the cooks ; nor do I know of any exception to this rule,
for though coca and tobacco are tabu to all women, and
their preparation is forbidden to the i sex, yet the women
grow the tobacco in the plantations, gather the leaf,
and dry it in the sun. But the actual making of the black
liquid is done by the men alone, and only men prepare the
coca for use. Tobacco is not an article of barter among

^ Bates i. 194, n. ^ Spruce, i. 215.

' Capsicum frutescens (Spix and Martius, p. 259). Artanthe eximia and
other Artanthe and Peperomia (Spruce, ii. 283-4).

io6 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

these tribes, as all grow it, and its preparation is no secret
to any of the tribesmen. Cultivated coca is sown when
the rains begin. The young seedlings need both care and
attention. 1 It is eighteen months before the slender shrub
will yield any harvest, though once grown the supply will
continue for three or four decades. The shrub grows to
some five or six feet high, into small trees in fact, with
lichen-encrusted trunks. Both the common kind and a
smaller-leaved variety ^ grow wild in these regions.

Men also must climb the trees to gather such fruits as
the papaw and the seeds of the cokerite or the peach palms.
Indians climb in what is practically a universal method,
with a circling rope and a ring.^ Their usual way is to
secure the legs together about the ankles with a strip of
the inner bark of a tree, and then, with arms and feet free,
to use a bigger loop adjusted round the tree and hips of
the climber for purchase power. For short climbs they will
dispense with the bigger loop. Sometimes palm-frond is
made into a ring for the toes, but with the forest Indians
these are oftener left free to allow of prehensile action.
With this simple attachment, made perhaps only of twisted
liana, the native will work his way to a perilous height up
the barest of tree trunks.^

As a woodsman the Indian is so far in advance of the
European traveller as to make all comparison futile.^ An
Indian in the bush is wonderful. From his earliest days
he has been taught to watch and note. I have known an
Indian stop and tell me that when the sun was in a certain

1 For processes of growing and preparation, see Markham, pp. 148-9.

2 Erythroxylon coca and E. cataractarum (Spruce, ii. 446-8).

3 Cf. E. B. Tylor, p. 170.

* An illustration in Sir H. Johnston's Liberia, ii. 406, shows a West
African native climbing with only one ring and both arms and ankles free.
Bates mentions an Indian climbing with only one ring used for the feet
(Bates, ii. 196). The same method is to be found in Ceylon, among the
Malays, etc, (cf. Skeat and Blagden, i. 51, 62, 85 ; Tennant, Ceylon, ii. 523 ;
Partridge, Cross River Natives, p. 150, etc.).

* This is no uncommon thing among peoples of lower culture, but
that it does not of necessity follow as a corollary to life in the bush is proved
by some of the West African tribes who are most indifferent sportsmen.
This is the case among sundry of the peoples of the Northern Territories
of the Gold Coast, where a British official has before now had to train his
shikari, if he hoped for successful sport.

PLATE XXVII.

ERYTHROXYLON— COCA

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 107

position, that is to say half an hour previously, seven
Indians passed that way carrying a tapir, which had been
killed when the sun was there — indicating another position.
It was killed a long distance away, and the bag must have
been a tapir on account of the evident weight. He took
up a leaf on which was a spot of blood, coagulated. He
pointed to tracks on the ground, to prove the question of
numbers and distance. The men who passed were weary,
he knew it by the way their toes had dropped on the ground.
The breaking of a twig, the exudation of sap, is enough of
a guide for the Indian to judge when the last passer-by came
that way. I have been told it was within ten minutes, and
shown a leaf. It had begun to rain ten minutes before,
and the leaf, overturned by a passing foot, was wet upon
both sides. A glance will suffice for an estimate of what
animals passed, and when. By some intuitive perception,
moreover, he will deduce in a moment whither the game
has gone, and will make, not along its trail, but more directly
for it. Yet close and accurate as his observation invariably
is, when the Indian sportsman begins a tale of the chase
it is exaggerated beyond the wildest dreams and liveliest
imaginings of the most gifted sporting Mimchausen among
ourselves.

When an Indian is path-finding he judges both time and
distance by the sun. If not attacked by an enemy, he will
win his way home from anywhere, always at a jog-trot, and
will probably do his fifty miles on nothing more sustaining
than coca. A sense of locality is born in him, and from
childhood upwards this is trained and developed by con-
tinued and varied experiences. To be able to judge by the
sky, by the weathered side of trees, by the flight of birds,
or the run of animals — above all to have a sense that is
greater than all judgment — is a matter of life or death
not once but continually. The inept are the unfit, and
the forest will show them no mercy.

This minuteness and accuracy of observation comes into
play again when the Indian is hunting. Death to his
quarry from the tiny poisoned dart of the blow-pipe is
certain, but not absolutely instantaneous. He also will

io8 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

shoot birds with a blunt-headed arrow that stuns but does
no damage to the plumage. The shock appears to kill the
bird. Hit with dart or arrow they may flutter a little
distance before they fall. I have watched an Indian scores
of times when hunting game shoot bird after bird in a tree,
mark down where each fell, and eventually never fail to
account for every one despite the density of the surrounding
bush. Hardly a traveller but has noted and wondered at
the same thing.

Blow-pipes are only carried by the Indians when hunt-
ing. They are weapons of the chase, not of war. Most of
the tribes manufacture their own, but the Bara, who neither
hunt nor fish, get theirs solely by barter from other tribes.
The blow-pipe — ohidiake of the Witoto, dodike of the Boro —
made by these tribes is a heavier weapon than those made
by tribes farther north. ^ It is constructed, like those of all
tribes south of the Japura, in two sections, boimd together
with great nicety, and has invariably a mouthpiece made of
vegetable ivory or a similar wood that fits round inside the
mouth. These blow-pipes are from eight to fourteen feet
long, with a quarter-inch tube, the outer mouthpiece being an
inch and a half. They are sometimes made from reeds ^ by
the Boro and Andoke, and I have seen small Boro boys with
a hollow reed pipe, about half the ordinary length. This was
merely a plaything. These are the simplest form of blow-
pipe, and would appear to be the original type. Though I
imagine reeds are always obtainable, for the flora did not
seem to vary, as a rule the wood of the chonta palm is
employed.^ On the north of the Japura, the tribes, I
believe, mostly make their blow-pipes of palm stems.* Two

* The blow-pipe, the gravitana in lingoa-geral, is known as the zarahatana
among the Teffe tribes (Bates, ii. 236) ; the bodoquera on the Napo. Koch-
Griinberg gives the following names for it : todike, Imitrita Miranya ;
uataha, Yavitero ; uilipona, Uarekena ; uapana, Yukuna ; Mauipi,
Katapolitani ; mauipi or moipi, Siusi ; mauipi or mauipi, Tariana {Aruak-
Sprachen, p. 73).

^ A species of Arundinaria. * B actus ciliata..

* The wood used is paxiaha-i, the Iriartea setigera (Spruce, ii. 522). This
small palm grows from ten to fifteen feet high, with a stem of an inch to
two inches in diameter. When dry the soft inner pith is removed, and the
bore polished with a bunch of tree-fern roots pulled up and down (Wallace,
p. 147).

PLATE XXVIII.

I & 2.— Andoke bamboo cases with darts and
cotton

3. Dart with cotton attached

4. Blowpipe with dart
5- Javelins

6. Fishing trident

7 Spears in bamboo case

8. Dance Staff

4 6 »i™ 8

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 109

long strips of this wood are slit off by notching and levering
with a stone axe, as already described. The chonta poles
are trimmed, rubbed, and grooved with sand and a paca-
tooth tool till they form the corresponding halves of a tube,
which must fit most exactly. All this entails very careful
and tedious work, so it is fortunate that time to an Indian
is of no account. These half tubes are then fastened
together and the bore polished with what is practically
sand-paper. A string is dipped in some gummy substance,
and then covered with sand. When dry, a fine polish is
secured with this by friction. The blow-pipe is next bound
from end to end with fibre-string, or narrow strips of pliant
bark.^ The whole pipe is then coated with some resinous
gum, or wax.2 ^ small bone is fixed about twelve inches
from the mouthpiece, and this acts as a sight. Such a tube
will send an arrow a distance of from forty to one himdred
and fifty feet, and an expert hunter shoots the smallest
birds at twenty yards. The chonta -wood pipe is the
heaviest and most lasting, but I do not know if it carries
farthest. The Indians' accuracy of aim is extraordinary.
The arrows, or darts, are about nine inches long, no thicker
than a small match, and are tufted with fluffy down from
the seed vessels of the silk-cotton tree,^ the tuft being of a
size to fit exactly into the bore of the pipe. The arrows are
made of the leaf -stem spines of the Patawa palm.* They are
carried in a quiver of bamboo lined with dried grass or fine
rushes that protect the delicate darts. The poisoned points
are partly cut through so that they break off in the wound.
Once a bird or animal is hit the poison kills them very
speedily. The silk-cotton for tipping the arrow is carried
in a gourd that is attached to the arrow quiver with strips
of cane, and to it is also tied the jawbone of the pirai fish,
which is used as a file for the points of the darts. When
the arrow is ejected from the blow-pipe there is a slight noise,

1 Jacitara (Bates, ii. 236).

2 From the avhol-del-lacre (Hardenberg, Man, p. 136) ; Pao-de-lacre,
Vismia guianensis (Spruce, ii. 522).

' Bomhax (Wallace, p. 147) ; Eriodendron sp. (Sterculiaceae) , (Spruce, ii.
523 ; Bates, ii. 237).

* Oenocarpus Batawa (Spruce, ii. 522).

no THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

like a child's pop-gun, but it is not enough to scare the
game.^

Indians are no more provident as hunters than as house-
keepers. When game is plentiful they will kill and eat, kill
recklessly, and eat to repletion. But game is not always
plentiful. It may abound to-day and all be gone to-morrow.
Even parrots and peccary will fail at times. Birds and
beasts wander, and though the hunter can often judge of
direction through knowledge of their habits, and — what in
this instance probably governs them — which fruits are
ripest and where most abundantly to be found, this will
not altogether account for the fluctuations in the supply of
game. It must also be remembered that in this respect
the bush varies greatly, and even where animal Ufe is not
scarce it is apt to become so on the advent of man. Even
apart from the disturbance caused by the hunter, game in
the vicinity of any human settlement tends to disappear.
The hunter must go farther and farther afield.

The Indian is an expert trapper. His traps though
simple are ingeniously contrived, and seldom fail to act.
An empty bag is due more frequently to absence of game
than to the inadequate plan of the trap. Monkeys are
caught with a running-noose loop snare made of liana,
which is adjusted carefully along a fruit-bearing branch of
a tree. Any monkey attempting to reach the fruit strangles
itself in the noose, exactly as a rabbit does in the wire of
an English poacher.

A shallow pan of water is the Indian bait for ground
vermin. Round it they dig a ring of holes, about a foot
across, on which are lightly spread grass and leaves. Rats,
mice, frogs, and small snakes venturing to drink fall through

* These blow-pipes appear to be similar to those still in use among the
Orang Kuantan Malays, of which a specimen is to be seen in the British
Museum. It is made of two grooved halves of a hard wood, bound with
cane, and coated with " a gutta-like substance " (Skeat, Man, 1902, No.
108). This is, however, a shorter instrument than the Witoto or Boro
use, the measurements given being only 5 feet 2 inches for total length,
with an interior diameter of seven-sixteenths of an inch at the mouthpiece
and three-eighths of an inch at the muzzle-end. The blow-pipe is found
among all Malayan tribes. For distribution in the South Seas, cf. map in
Skeat and Blagden's Pagan Tribes, i. 254.

PLATE XXIX.

ANDOKFi P.AMBOO CASE WITH DARTS FOR BLOWPIPE
AND GOURD FULL OF COTTON

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS iii

into the holes that are deep enough to hold them captive
till the trapper comes round and secures his catch. For
larger animals the himters dig a line of pits, with a sharpened
stake fixed upright at the bottom of each. The game,
corralled and driven over these, falls in through the sticks
and leaves that hide the opening, and is impaled on the
stake. The Karahone arm their pits with poisoned arrows,
and dig a succession of these death-traps down a forest
avenue.^ A more complex contrivance is made with care-
fully poised logs. This description of trap is set in a forest
run, the brushwood on either side is twisted and plaited into
a rough fence, and the trap erected in the opening. The
slightest pressure on the footboard releases the weight, and
brings the heavy trunk down with a crash on the intruder.
A trap of this kind will catch anything from a squirrel to
a jaguar.

A tapir is sometimes killed with a throwing javelin,
which the Indians use with much dexterity, though when
they throw anything they do it with an over-arm action,
with a jerk as a girl would. Their skill with these javelins
is not surprising when one remembers that they hunt two
or three days a week from boyhood, and so are continually
throwing them at animals. The javelin is a light spear
with a poisoned palm spine at the point. A man carries
seven of these in his hand, and seven more in reserve in a
bamboo case — fourteen in all. These javelins are about
six feet long, and an Indian can throw one a distance of
thirty yards. Sometimes only five are carried in the hand,
but seven is the more usual number. Though long they
are very thin and light. The haft is usually made of chonta,
or similar hard straight-grained woods. A spine is always
fixed in the point, which is filed almost through so that it
will break off in the body of the wounded animal. These
spines are poisoned with animal putrefying poison. Of
the heavier spears more anon.

Koch-Griinberg noted that tribes on the Tikie have well-

* Deniker states that the Miranha hunt " like the ancient Quechuas
by means of nets stretched out between the trees, into which they drive,
with cries and gestures, the terrified animals " (Deniker, p. 561). I have
never seen or heard of such nets among them.

112 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

defined and recognised hunting and fishing rights, but that
when travelling any such rights are avoided. This is common
to all Indians. They will even erect barriers in the bush
and on the rivers, and they keep strictly to their own
localities, otherwise quarrels would arise and war be the
upshot.

The sporting proclivities of the tribes vary considerably.
The Tukana are fishers, but not hunters. The Boro, on the
other hand, though great hunters do not fish, at least I do
not remember ever having been given fish in a Boro
house. Certainly they are not such fishermen as the
Witoto or the Okaina, who are the most skilful of all the
fishing tribes.

Fish are taken with hook and line, in nets and traps,
by poisoning the water, by spearing, and by shooting with
bows and arrows. For fish-hooks these tribes have hardly
anything but those that they contrive for themselves from
wood, bone, or spines, and civilised metal hooks are greatly
sought after by all of them. Napo Indians make hooks of
bone.^ The Witoto fakwasi is a fish-hook made of wood or
palm spine. A spine is fastened to a fine stick, and this is
baited with grubs, and used with a fibre line, or with a
pihekoa, a rod and a line. Fish are caught to some extent
with bait and laid lines.

Hand nets are made of chambiri palm-fibre in the same
way that hammocks are made, but with a finer mesh ;
larger ones are constructed by fixing fences of wattle across
the stream before the rivers rise. In the dry season the
Witoto use nets to drag the pools in the river-bed. They
also catch fish with baited nets, the bait being larvae, or
some fruit attractive to fish, such as that of the setico, or
the drupes of certain laurels. In the dry season they bale
out the water from the shallower pools with gourds till
the fish can be captured by hand.

Some of the fish traps are most cleverly designed. There
is one known on the Uaupes as the matapi, which is simply
a basket open at one end, but without sufficient space for
fish of any size to turn round in. As fish are not able to

* Orton, pp. 169-70.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 113

swim backwards without the room to turn they cannot
escape once in the trap. On the Napo the Indians spear
fish most expertly, but other Indians depend largely on
these and similar traps for their supply.

Fish are speared with a wooden trident or, rather, caught
between its prongs, or stabbed with a bamboo spear that
has a double-edged blade. Some of the civilised Indians
of the lower Amazons have harpoons with detachable heads
that they use for hunting the manatee, or river dolphin,
but, in these upper waters, dolphins, if seen, — and that is
rarely — are speared with tridents ; the Indians have no
harpoons, and the only thing that resembles a detachable
head is the partly filed-through javelin. The Menimehe
shoot fish with the bow and arrow.

By far the most wholesale and general way in which fish
are obtained is through the use of poison.^ The Indians
procure this from the root of an evergreen bush, the babasco,^
which they pound very fine. They dam the stream with a
wattle fencing and then throw the mashed babasco in above
this fish weir. The fish frequently jump out of the water,
gasping as though they were being strangled, and the
Indians secure those distressed fish in outspread palm leaves.
Sometimes the dead fish drop down into a net, spread beside
the dam to catch them ; or the Indian fisherman will
simply spear them when they are sufficiently narcotised.
Dead fish will be found floating in the vicinity many hours
afterwards. The Napo Indians put the crushed babasco in
a basket and stir the water with this below the dam — so
that the fish cannot escape upstream.^ Witoto and other
Issa-Japura tribes merely throw the roots into the stream,
and the dam is made more to prevent the dead fish being
washed away than to stop the live ones escaping. The
poison works almost instantaneously on the smaller fish.
The Indians on the Tapajos make use of a poisonous liana

* Cf. method of poisoning adopted by natives of Torres Straits
{Torres Straits, iv. 159),

^ Jacquinia armillaris. According to Spix and Martins babasco poison
is made from the leaves and blossom of the Budleya connata (Spix and von
Martius, Reise, 1820, p. 98).

^ Simson, p. 131.

114 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

called timho} Its action is similar though not so immediate
as that of the babasco root, and consequently it is of little
use in quick -flowing waters. Neither babasco nor Umbo
affect the fish injuriously for human food.

^ Paullinia pinnata (Sapindaceae) (Spruce, ii. 523 ; Bates, ii. 82-3).
Spruce also mentions cunambi, poison obtained from the roots of Ichthyo-
thera cunambi (Spruce, ii. 520) ; and Yuca-raton, the root of Glincidiae sp.
(Spruce, ii. 455).

CHAPTER VIII

The Indian armoury — Spears — Bows and arrows — Indian strategy — Forest
tactics and warfare — Defensive measures — Secrecy and safety — The
Indian's science of war — Prisoners — War and anthropophagy — Canni-
bal tribes — Reasons for cannibal practices — Ritual of vengeance —
Other causes — No intra -tribal cannibalism — The anthropophagous
feast — Human relics — Necklaces of teeth — Absence of salt — Geo-
phagy.

The armoury of the Indian contains, for the most part,
weapons designed for primitive hand-to-hand encounter
with either man or beast. The sixty or more feet a blow-
pipe dart will carry; the two hundred feet, which is the
outside range of an arrow from the most powerful of his
bows, would be futile in any country less enclosed than
these dense woodlands. Even here success in intertribal
conflict is a matter of personal dexterity rather than
mechanical accomplishment. It is true that the Witoto
near the rubber districts have ordinary muzzle-loading
scatter-guns. Other tribes have a few, a very few rifles,
and some Brummagem fowling-pieces, usually with single
barrels. But the rifle cannot be said to have won its way
into unchallenged favour. When an Indian does possess a
gun he is exceedingly chary of using it ; his chief idea is to
save his powder and shot. The Menimehe have neither
rifles nor scatter-guns ; they consider that firearms frighten
the game, and prefer their own throwing- javelins, their
bows, and their arrows.

The Indian weapons of offence may be said then to
consist of the sword, the bow, and the spear. There is no
difference between war spears and arrows and those used
against the larger wild animals. For defence the Menimehe
carry a small club, or life-preserver, and the Jivaro and
"5

ii6 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

some of the tribes near the Napo river, use a circular shield
covered with tapir hide like the Uaupes river Indians. ^
The Menimehe also have large round shields made with
tapir skins. From two to five hides are superimposed one
on the other to make a shield, and when finished these will
turn any arrow or spear, and are impenetrable to other than
a nickel-cased bullet of high velocity. The Yahuna on the
other side of the Apaporis do not use a shield, nor do any of
the tribes south of the Japura.

The Indian's club is like a quarter-staff made of hard
red-wood — ^which is the heaviest kind known to them —
and is used simply as a personal weapon of offence or
defence. It is not a war weapon. The Indian sword is
made of red-wood or black iron-wood, and is from thirty to
thirty-six inches long, polished quite plainly. It is used by
the attacker to aim blows at the thighs of his antagonist,
the object being so to hit him as to bring him to the ground.
Once this is done his head can be easily smashed. As a
weapon of defence the Indian uses it to protect himself
from the throwing of javelins. Holding the handle in one
hand and the point in the other, he can ward off such missiles
with the greatest dexterity, thus in a way obviating the
necessity of carrying a shield.

A diversity of spears, or javelins, is constructed by all
these tribes. Chonta wood is universally employed for
spears and arrow-heads, the weapon differing in accordance
with its purport, the chonta spear for tapir, the blunt
arrow for birds, and so forth. These wooden weapons are
scraped smooth with the file-like jaw of the pirai fish, and
a final polish is put on with the leaves of the Cecropia
peltata, which are rough enough to be effective substitutes
for sand-paper. The spears are thickest at the head, and
taper nearly to a point at the butt. The head is made of a
separate piece of chonta some three inches long, bound into
the grooved end. A poisoned palm spine is always fixed
in the point of a spear, as in the lighter throwing-javelin.
About two or three inches down, the head is filed nearly
through, in order that it shall break off in the wound, and

^ The frame is made of Hmbo-titica, Heteropsis sp. (Spruce, ii. 523).

PLATE XXX.

1. Water Jar, Menimehe (a) Witoto

2. Drums (Witoto)

3. Pan pipes (Witoto (a) Boro

4. Stone Axe (Andoke)

5. Paddle used on main Amazon Stream

6. Paddle used on Issa and Japura rivers

7. Menimehe Hand Club

8. Wooden Sword (Boro)
g. Pestle— Coca, etc. (Boro)

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 117

so be the more difficult to extract. The poisoned point is
protected with a reed sheath.

Arrow-heads also are half filed through. This is done
with the fish- jaw attached to the quiver immediately before
use. The tips are made of chonta and are poisoned.^ The
bows are of various kinds of wood, and of many sizes, strung
wdth fibre made thicker and stronger as desired. The arrow
shaft is without feathers, and has no nock for the bowstring.
The arrows are carried in quivers of wicker or of wood.
The Menimehe, the most skilful bowmen of these regions,
are famous for their quivers as well as for their pottery.
They make the quivers out of bamboo, the elementary ones
being merely scraped-out sections cut so that there shall be
a joint or a knot for the end ; the more elaborate specimens
are made of strips of bamboo bound together. The arrow
poison is carried in a small pot or calabash. The vegetable
poisons that are used for birds and small game give place to a
mixture of strychnos and poison obtained from decomposed
animal or human matter when the weapon is employed
against men or the bigger beasts. Its effect on a human
being is said to be almost instantaneous.

Indian strategy makes for concealment both in attack
and defence. A tribe will never rush precipitately into
open and aggressive war with a neighbour. Plans for the
campaign are no affairs of a hurried minute ; no impulse
of uncontrolled anger. They are, on the contrary, well
matured and much deliberated. After many a tobacco
palaver, when war is determined on for any good and
sufficient reason — ^usually revenge for some real or fancied
wrong — the tribal warriors muster, and it may be that a
friendly tribe will assemble with them. Attack will be
stealthy, silent, and never by any chance frontal. These
are the true tactics of the forest denizen. A noiseless flank
approach, a sudden rush, and then, if the foe be taken

^ Such very hard wood is procurable, and so abundant is it that even
tribes hke the Botucudo, who could use shell, stone, or metal, use wood in
preference, and man}'- tribes prefer their lithic axes to metal ones. The
inference is obvious — these peoples are not, and never have been, metal-
using races, and poisoned wood suits sufficiently their purposes for arrow-
heads.

ii8 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

unawares, a furious onslaught. But surprise is essential
to success. With the utmost caution they approach the
enemy's head-quarters, the big tribal house, probably when
a dance is taking place and the hostile warriors are occupied
with matters other than possible war. The invaders wait
for night ; creep in under cover of darkness ; and if possible
cut up the unprepared revellers when asleep after the feast.
Should the victorious attackers be in a blood-thirsty mood,
every soul will be killed and the house burnt. But the
Indian is no Berserker when fighting. He is as careful of
his own skin as he is anxious to destroy his foe — possibly
even more so ; a living enemy may be slain in the future,
but if he be killed himself ultimate vengeance is no longer
for him.

As regards defence, the Indian never attempts any
effective fortification of his home. The only defensive
action taken by the tribes is to prepare a series of pitfalls
in the forest avenues, after the fashion described for game,
with poisoned stakes to impale any foe who may un-
wittingly stray into them. Death in such a trap comes very
speedily. These pits, as I have already noted, are always
dug by the Karahone.

It appeared to me that the Indians depended mainly on
the secrecy of the tribal dwelling, ensured by the absence of
direct footways ; for though their houses are not built on
defensive — or even defendable — ^lines, the hostility between
various language-groups is rampant, as has been already
shown, and internecine strife is unending. The Indian has
been called docile and gentle. He may be, if to fear an
enemy as much as he is hated be docility. *' Do not wait for
the first blow but deal it : if you cannot deal it with im-
punity now wait till you can — but wait securely hidden " :
there is the whole text-book of the Indian's science of war.

If it can be done with due regard to personal safety the
Indian warriors like to take prisoners. A prisoner is tangible
evidence of successful achievement and personal valour.
There is, as a rule, no mutilation of the dead, or of a
prisoner ; whatever does occur is due to personal brutality
on the part of some individual. Prisoners are bound with

PLATE XXXI.

BAMBOO CASES, FILLED WITH DARTS FOR BLOWPIPE— SHOWING

FFSH-JAW SCRAPER, AND GOURD FILLED WITH RAW COTTON. ONE

DART HAS TUFT OF COTTON PLACED READY FOR USE.

THESE ARE ANDOKE WORK

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 119

palm -fibre, and so long as they walk quickly enough,
when the victorious band returns from the fray, they are
not ill-treated. But there must be no delay. Every
moment adds to the dangers that threaten the marauders.
Vengeance accomplished, they must hurry back to the
comparative safety of their own locality. If a prisoner lag
he endangers his captors, and in self-defence they would slay
him. Prisoners are sometimes sold, but as a rule they are
killed and eaten at the big feast arranged to commemorate
the event, unless they are young enough to be kept as slaves
without risk of their running away to tell tribal enemies of
the secret roads through the bush. The consumption of a
dead foe at least guarantees his harmlessness — as a warrior,
if not as a comestible.

Prisoners are never kept for any length of time, on
account of the danger that would follow should they manage
to escape. They get no food nor drink, and if never actually
tortured, are treated very casually until killed with a heavy
wooden sword, not with poisoned javelins, as Robuchon
imagined was the ceremonial method of killing for culinary
purposes. The captor knocks his prisoner down with
blows on the shins and the thigh, and then hacks off the
head with his broadsword. Robuchon is also responsible
for the statement that the prisoners consider that to be
thus killed and eaten is a great distinction and honour. It
is true that they make no complaints, but that is simply
on account of the fatalistic nature of the Indian.

If killed in war a chief's body is carried off by his
tribe if possible, though the ordinary warriors, dead or
wounded, of the beaten faction are left to their fate, for
fear of delay and possible surprise during retreat ; although
that fate be known to be^nsumption by the enemy.

Among the Boro and other cannibal tribes anthropo-
phagous orgies follow hard on the heels of tribal strife. If
it happens to be possible, that is ta say if the fight has
taken place as an attack on their own house, the corpses
of the enemy are eaten ; but no Indian ever risks the
chance of reprisals being taken by remaining in the vicinity
of a hostile house to eat the dead, nor will he ever burden

120 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

himself with food when returning to his own habitation.
M The cannibal feast thus becomes the prerogative of the
conqueror.

Unlike the better-known tribes of Guiana, most, if not
all, of the Indians of the upper rivers are indisputably
cannibals, especially the Boro, Andoke, and Resigero groups.
It has even been asserted by some writers that sundry
. tribes belong to the lowest grade of cannibals in that they
will " eat their own dead children, friends and relatives." ^
This, however, is incorrect, and why it must be so is very
obvious when the main causation of extra-tribal cannibalism
is understood.

There are three reasons why these Indians are anthro-
pophagous.

In the first place, and it is not only the first but the most
general and important, anthropophagy is looked upon as a
system^ofjvengeance, a, jnethod of inflicting the supreme
insult upon an enemy .^ It will be seen that the Indian has
, very definite opinions as to the inferiority of the brute
Z creation. To resemble animals in any way is a matter to
^ |be avoided at all costs. Body hair is an animal character-
y /istic, so man must depilate. The birth of twins is a disgrace
V' / because it is a descent to bestial levels. What a crowning
I disgrace then must it be for the dead to share no better fate
/ than that of slaughtered animals. No more absolute ven-
geance on the dead could be devised. The primary cause
therefore is insult.

Secon3Iy, there is a desire to make use of what would
otherwise be waste material. Animal food is scarce in the
forest. But these tribes do not, as has been asserted of the
Cobeu and Arekaine,^ make war simply with a view to
obtaining provision of human flesh. Anthropophagy is the
effect, not the cause, of war. But then there remains the
fact that meat is hard to come by, and is continually re-
quired. The slain and the prisoners provide meat, and at

^ Oakenfull, p. 30.

'^ Compare with customs of the Mafulu in British New Guinea (William-
son, p. 179 ; Fiji, Thompson, p. 35}.
* Clough, pp. 104-5 ; Wallace, p. 353.

PLATE XXi^II.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 121

the same time the degradation, the ignominy of supplying
the place of beasts makes vengeance most definite.

Finally, and in a still more subsidiary degree, there is
the reason most commonly advanced, the supposition that
there exists a measure of belief in the assumption of the
characteristics of the eaten by the eater ; a belief 'that "must
give sardonic impulse to the primary reason of all, the desire
to degrade the dead. Though this third reason has least
weight of any with the Indian, it cannot be entirely absent
when the food tabu connected with childbirth is remem-
bered. But I know of no such actually admitted reasons
as give rise to anthropophagous feasts elsewhere, as among
the Aro, who are said to eat human sacrifices because " those
who ate their flesh ate gods, and thus assimilated something
of the diyine attributes and power." ^

TKe^subsidiary reason, that of necessary anthropophagy,
has been advanced by some apologists,^ and with a certain
amount of truth. But thisjreason may be looked upon as
very secondary, in my opinion, though, were the food-quest
of little importance, there might be less cannibalism. The
Indian would, in fact, only eat human flesh ceremonially,
as a ritual insult.

FrorQ^all this it follows that intra-tribal cannibalism
-wouldJbfi a criminal outrage by the tribe on itself ^ and there-
fore it coiilS never occur that a member of the tribe was
eaten, nor would his teeth be extracted even to show an
accomplished revenge. This disposes of any such thing as
' * Jhe_eating of dead relatives as a sign of respect. These and
similar statements are due to misapprehension of facts by
the writer, or a too hasty judgment on the part of the
explorer.

One other cannibal custom noted by Wallace and recently
confirmed by Koch-Griinberg, is unknown to me, that of
exhuming the bones of the dead, which are then burnt and
the calcined remains made into broth.^ No such custom
ever came imder my notice, nor did any of the tribes refer

* Partridge, Cyoss River Natives, p, 59 ; " Upper Congo Cannibals,"
J.R.A.I., xxiv. pp. 298-g.

^ For example. Maw, p. 160.
' Wallace, pp. 346-7.

122 THE l^ORTH-WEST AMAZONS

to such practices in any way in my hearing. The dried
human heads prepared by the Jivaro ^ are also unknown in
the regions here dealt with. No heads are mummified in
this district. But among some of the tribes south of the
main Amazon river this repulsive art is carried on, and
specimens of these heads, not more than one-fifth their
natural size, have been obtained and brought to Europe.^
Their exportation is now forbidden by the South American
governments, as the supply not unnaturally was apt to
coincide with the demand.

Though these reduced heads are unknown to the Issa-
Japura tribes, the head is not ignored as a trophy. The
fleshy parts, the hair and the teeth are removed, and the
skull is hung in the plantation patch to be cleaned by
ants and other insect scavengers. These will pick one bare
in half an hour. Cleaned, and dried in the sun, this memorial
of victory is eventually suspended outside, or on the rafters
in the house, over the string that carries the top part of the
drums. Bates records how the Mandurucu soaked the
heads " in bitter vegetable oil," and then smoked or sun-
dried them,^ but the Issa-Japura tribes subject their dread-
ful trophies to no other process than the action of the insects,
air, and sun in the plantations. These ghastly evidences of
Indian vengeance I have often seen in the houses, and in the
plantations, the bare skulls gleaming white like so many
gourds on a string. Robuchon also mentions that he
found skulls hanging from the ceiling of malokas, which the
natives were quite ready to barter for a large handful of
beads, but this does not tally with my experience.

When a feast is to take place the prisoners are knocked
down and despatched, their heads removed to be danced
with and eventually dried as trophies. .The body is then
divided and shared among the f casters.. _ Only the legs and
arms, and the fleshy parts of the head, are eaten ceremoni-
ally, an3rthing like the intestines, brains, and so forth, is
regarded as filthy .and never touched, nor is the trunk eaten.

1 Ratzel, ii. 138-9 ; Orton, pp. 171-2.

2 See British Museum, Cambridge Museum, Munich Museum.

3 Bates, ii. 132.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 123

The male genital organs, however, are given to the wife of

^the chief, the only woman who has "^any share in the feast.

/ THeliands anST feeT are regarded as delicacies, for the same

^ reason that civilised man has a preference for calves' feet,

^^ on account of their gelatinous character.

^^ Each portion of flesh is tied to a stick, and every man,

according to Robuchon's account, drops his share in the

pot, and places the stick to which it is tied on the ground

i beside it whilst he watches till the meat is cooked. I was

j told that the culinary processes were attended to by the

/ old women of the tribe. The flesh, with the required

I seasoning of peppers, is boiled over a slow fire, while drums

are beaten, and the assembled tribe — adorned with full

panoply of paint, necklaces, and feathers, and with the

gory heads fixed upon their dancing staves — daiice round

singing a wild song of victory.

The savage orgy will continue for hours, with outbursts
of drum-beating, gratulatory orations, and much drinking.
I was told that the festival of drink and dance will go on
without intermission for eight daya*^^

Only men eat ceremonially, the women, with the excep-
tion of the chief's wife, having no share in the revolting
feast, except on occasions, when perhaps the necessity
for animal food — the secondary reason — is the cause of
'the mdulgence. What portions ~15f*'the bodies are not
eaten are thrown into the river. I do not know if this
' is ceremonial, but it is curious to note that the Indian
' paradise is up river, not down, where, of course, the refuse
is carried by the stream. With some tribes the trunk is
buried, or it may be merely thrown into the bush to be
devoured by the wild dogs. This latter is not infrequent.
These methods of disposal are ceremonial in so much as
that they are carried out amid organised tribal jeers and
insults.

^ Flutes are made out of the arm-bones of eaten prisoners,
/the humeinis. The radius and the ulna, fleshless and dry,

' I was never present at a cannibal feast. This information is based on
Robuchon's account, checked by cross-questioning the Indians with whom
I came in contact.

124 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

with the fingers of the hand contracted, are fastened to
wooden handles and used to stir the kawana. I have seen
these, but they are jealously guarded by their owners, and
probably no white man has succeeded in obtaining a
specimen.

Among the tribes of the Japura and the Issa the teeth
j are always carefully retained by the slayer, to be made into
* a necklace, a visible and abiding token of his completed
revenge. This removal of the teeth may be held synony-
mous with the curse of many savage tribes in reference to
their enemies — " Let their teeth be broken." David himself
called upon God to ^' break the teeth " of his foes. Possibly
the reason is a reversion in thought to the time when the
teeth were man's only weapon.

It is certainly worth noting in connection with the
'anthropophagous practices of these tribes that they have
almost no salt. In its natural state it is non-existent
throughout the Issa -Japura regions, and can only be obtained
with difficulty. It is possible that the salt in human blood
may be one of the unrealised attractions that lead these
peoples to anthropophagous practices. A craving that can
be so dominant as to influence race migration, as the salt-
craving may do,^ can hardly be ignored when dealing with
the inhabitants of a country where local conditions offer
little or nothing to satisfy it.

Another vice which may very possibly have origin in the
same lack of a necessary condiment, and to which these
Indians are very prone, is the eating of clay.^ It is
not impossible that the clay may have saline properties ;
in any case among all these tribes geophagy is very
common, especially with the non-cocainists, the women
and children. As a rule it occurs among the very poorest
— the slave clan, — those who are least able to obtain
such a luxury as salt, and it is found among the female
children most of all. The latter fact is perhaps because
the male child, the potential warrior, is the more carefully

^ Johnson, Liberia, ii. 898.

^ On the other hand earth-eating is prevalent among the Torres Straits
people, where salt is not rare. The pregnant woman eats it to make her
infant light in colour and strong and brave {Torres Straits Exped., iv. 139).

PLATE XXXIII.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 125

guarded, and would be the more severely beaten if dis-
covered eating dirt. I never came across any man who
eat clay, though I know of a boy who suffered from this
neurotic appetite. The clay, if it cannot be otherwise
obtained, will be scraped from under the fireplace, and it
is always eaten secretly.

The Indians look upon geophagy as injurious, but it
appears to be ineradicable. I cannot help thinking it must
be due to some great *' want '/ in Indian diet, a physical
craving that the ordinary food of the tribes does not satisfy.
It is instinctive. In the manufacture of coca they add
clay. This" ^suggests that if taken in small quantities it
may have a neutralising and therefore a beneficial effect on
some more or less injurious article of daily food. But it
rapidly, and invariably, degenerates into a vice ; and the
habit appears to have a weakening and wasting effect on
the whole body.

In some parts of the Amazons, though not with these
tribes, the clay is regularly prepared for use,^ and the vice
is shared by other races than the Indian. 2 Children who
suffer from this extraordinary craving will swallow anything
of a similar character, earth, wax, and Bates even mentions
pitch,^ but they prefer the clay that is scraped from under
the spot where the fire has been burning, probably because
the chemical processes induced by the heat render it more
soluble, easily pulverised, and hence more actually digestive
in its action.

It has been suggested that this disease was introduced
into America by negro slaves, and is not indigenous. This
is a question for the bacteriological expert rather than the
traveller to decide, but as it indubitably exists among tribes
that have not come in any contact with negroes or negro-
influenced natives it would seem to argue on the face of
things that the similarity of vicious tastes was due to
similarity of causation, rather than to contamination by
evil example, unless the ubiquitous microbe is to be held
responsible for this ill also.

^ Crevaux, p. 287. ^ Bates, ii. 195. ^ Ibid.

CHAPTER IX

The food quest — Indians omnivorous eaters — Tapir and other animals
used for food — Monkeys — The peccary — Feathered game — Vermin —
Eggs, carrion, and intestines not eaten — Honey — Fish — Manioc —
Preparation of cassava — Peppers — The Indian hot-pot — Lack of salt
— Indian meals — Cooking — Fruits — Cow-tree milk.

Food is the dominant problem of an Indian's existence.
The food quest is to him no indefinite sociological issue of
future ** food control," but an affair of every day. Living,
it would seem, in the midst of plenty, starvation is a
frequent visitant in an Amazonian household. They are an
improvident folk, as I have already stated, and if food
be plentiful give no thought to make provision for the
morrow, when there may be none to be had.^ " None " to
the man of the forest has a different significance, a more
inclusive meaning, than it has to the white man, for it
comprehends everything that by the widest stretch of the
imagination can be considered possible for human con-
sumption. And it is well for the Indians that they are
omnivorous, for the uncertainty of food supply is the most
certain factor of life in the Amazonian bush.^

To run through the details of the possible provision of
meat : there is, to start with, the tapir,^ though the Witoto
consider much tapir is bad, especially for women. The
print of its three toes, with a fourth on the forefeet, is very
seldom not to be found in the damp soil by stream and

^ Some tribes, for example the Jivaro (Simson, pp. 93-4), are said to be
more provident in' this respect, but the Boro and Witoto . groups are not
among them. Occasionally a store of pines may be made in October, when
pines are most plentiful, but this is all.

2 It may be noted here that all the denizens of the forest, including even
the larger carnivora, are by popular report fruit-eaters, and are specially
fond of the wild alligator pear (cf. Spruce, ii. 362-3).

^ Tapirus americanus.

126

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 127

river. The tapir is in fact plentiful throughout these
regions, though, thanks to its protective colouring, it
may often not be obtrusively present. The young tapir
is flecked and dotted with pale yellow spots on its brown
coat, an exact imitation of sunlight on the earth through
foliage. Gradually these stripes and spots fade to dull
greys, only the fully grown animal is entirely without
them, and of a uniform dead slaty colour. Young tapir
flesh makes an excellent dish, and is like pork in taste, but
it must be eaten very fresh, for the meat will not keep
sweet many hours on account of its richness. Therefore if
a tapir is killed in the water and sinks,^ it must be eaten
immediately it comes to the surface, that is after some hours,
during which the gases have generated in the animal's
stomach, and so caused it to rise. But tapir is always con-
sidered unhealthy if eaten too frequently, and at certain
seasons of the year is said to be quite uneatable, and if taken
gives rise to sickness. An old tapir is tough and heavy
eating at the best of times. Tapir flesh dried over a smoky
fire is excellent eating, though I have never seen the Indians
smoke meat for keeping, even when they found I did so
myself. Another meat that has been compared with pork is
that of the paca.^ It is rich and fat, but it is eatable, and
not so strong in flavour as the flesh of the capybara,^ a
larger animal, found usually in the vicinity of water. In
appearance the capybara is not unlike a long-nosed, crop-
eared rabbit, while its cousin the agouti,* chestnut-coloured
and rough-haired, has a rat-like face on a rabbit's body,
though the flesh has nothing in common with the rabbit's.
Both the paca and the agouti are plentiful in the forest.
Of the two the latter is more of a forest-dweller, and seeks
the streams only to drink.

A small species of ant-bear is fairly common, but the
large ant-eater is not often found. The latter does exist in
the Issa-Japura watersheds, according to Indian accounts;
and ant-bear is eaten by the Boro, but has too strong and

* All animals when wounded appear to take to water.

^ Coelogenys paca.

' Hydfochaerus capybara. * Dasyprocta agouti.

128 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

pungent a taste for the white palate. Armadilloes, when
obtainable, are baked in the ashes of the fire, as hedgehogs
are roasted in England.

Monkey flesh, though usually tough and invariably
insipid, is by no means despised, nor must a traveller in
these regions be squeamish over it, horribly suggestive as
the body of a cooked monkey very certainly is in appearance,
for monkey meat most frequently will be the only plat on
the dinner menu. It is the most ordinary food of the
Indian, though monkey is not the easiest game to collect.
The wounded or dying animal is very apt to clutch at the
boughs in its agony, and the hand will contract in death
and the body remain pendant. Even if it drop it will
frequently stick in a forked branch out of reach ; so that
for one monkey eaten probably several are slain. Monkeys
of all sorts, however, abound throughout the forest, and
also marmosets, pretty little creatures with something of
the squirrel about them.^ Though I never saw the big-
bellied monkey mentioned by Spruce,^ I noticed a large
number of spider-monkeys, with tails so prehensile that
they serve as additional hands to convey fruit to their
mouths. The supply of monkey flesh depends in the first
instance on what provender there may be in the neighbour-
hood for those animals. Monkeys are wanderers, and when
they have cleared one part of the forest of fruit and nuts,
they migrate to another. The migration of game is a
serious matter for the Indian, for all animals here are sub-
ject to periodical movements as noted in the previous
chapter. It may result in the abandonment of a homestead
when scarcity of animal life in a district drives the human
inhabitants away.

When it can be obtained a deer, or a sloth, furnishes a
variety for the cooking-pot ; and then there is the peccary,
so dreaded by the Indian. The peccary,^ the wild pig of

^ I captured some and brought them away as pets.

^ Spruce, i. p. 182.

' Dicotypes tajacu is the only one I observed in these parts, but
D. labiatus is common in the bush. The peccary is called kairooni by
the Arawak ; mero and emo by the Witoto according to the species ; mene
by the Boro ; and whinga by the Macusi.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 129

the forest, lives in small herds, and the reason proffered by
the Indians for their fear of the animal is that when one is
wounded it sets up a loud cry, and the rest of the herd
promptly come to its aid and join in attacking the aggressor.
This story is universal among the tribes. The peccary has
a deceptively harmless appearance. They have not all
tusks, and in no case are the tusks very prominent ;
yet, so sharp are they, that the fearless and pugnacious
creature can inflict a severe wound. The shoulder and leg
are the parts prized for eating. I know of no temporary
tabu connected with this animal, though it has been said
that at times the flesh is unfit for food on account of a gland
in the back.^ This may, however, be the reason why the
body is rarely eaten.

Of birds, parrots are the most plentiful, and the toughest.
For a hard, tasteless, and imappetising meal commend me
to the carcase of that noisy bird. They require to be stewed
for quite twenty-four hours, and that over a slow fire, or
else the flesh is impossible to eat. Their chief use is in
soup. Macaw, curassow, piuri and panje, mocking-bird,
toucan, and egrets all go to the family pepper-pot of the
successful hunter, with the turkey of these parts, pigeons,
partridges, herons, ducks, and geese ; in fact quite a good
assortment of feathered fowl.

The frogs that make night hideous with their croaking
provide the Indian epicure with one of his most esteemed
dishes, for both frogs and snakes are considered delicacies,
so that the traveller who pitied tribes like the Botocudo,
because insects and reptiles formed a large part of their
diet,2 would simply be wasting his sympathy. Even the
white man does not disdain the delicate flesh of the iguana,
ugly though that green-bellied, black-ridge-backed reptile
is. Turtles are caught and eaten during the dry season
when the rivers are low. The native method of capturing
them is to turn the unwieldly creature over on its back
when asleep on the sand-banks. This renders the turtles
perfectly helpless, though a snap from their powerful

^ See Wood's Natural History, "Mammals."
' OakenfuU, p. 30.

130 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

jaws will do serious damage. ^ The eggs also are eaten by
these tribes, although none of the Issa-Japura tribes will
touch birds' eggs, for they look upon them as foetal, and
therefore unclean. ^ Further it is beast-like, in their opinion,
to eat the liver, kidneys, and other intestines of animals,
though these may be made into soup or hot-pot. For
the same reason the Indian does not touch carrion.^ But
such niceness is outbalanced by tastes that in our eyes
would be equally or even more filthy, for the Indian will
eat vermin, and head lice are looked upon as quite a bon
bouche. Hence a scurf-comb is a most important present,
and to comb your neighbour's hair and eat the "bag"
an honour and a luxury.* They will also eat the grubs
of wasps and bees, in fact any larvae — nothing comes amiss
to them.

All the Indians — except the Menimehe, who, as men-
tioned, keep hives in their houses, — collect wild honey
from the hollow trees and other places where the bees nest
in the bush. Sometimes these insects make nests of a con-
siderable size, that look like lobster pots full of black pitch
hanging on the tree- trunks. The large cells are full of a
thin honey that is used by the natives to mix with various
drinks. The Indians are very fond of honey, and smoke
the bees out to secure it. Bees are more common than
wasps in these parts, and fortunately are less dangerous.

Fish abound in all the rivers, though like the plants and
animals they are smaller in the upper reaches than in the
lower Amazon valleys. Robuchon gave the following as
found in the Issa : Silurios of all kinds, that is to say platy-
somas, planiceps, platyrhynchos, leopardus, and the Uttle
caudirus (Serasalmys), Pygo, Cebras, Piraga (D. costatus
et carinatus) ; also many kinds of needle fish and shark-

^ Turning turtles is prohibited by law in Brazil, but no law reaches
these wilds.

^ The Indians of British Guiana who eat the turtles' and iguana eggs,
also " will not touch the egg of a fowl" (im Thurn, p. i8).

3 They do not, however, object to their food being decidedly " high "
(cf. Simson, p. 115).

* In this they share the tastes of the Liberian women (cf. Johnston,
Liberia, ii. 954).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 131

toothed fish. There is any quantity of skate in the Issa,
though its power to inflict a nasty wound does not recom-
mend it to the naked Indian fisherman. Some of the fish
are very good eating ; none better than the uaracu, which
is said to feed on laurel berries. ^

It is when one turns to the vegetable world that one
finds the staple food of the Amazonian native. The manioc
is to the Indian the chief necessary of life. The sweet
manioc,* although known to these Issa-Japura tribes, is
never planted, because it is not appreciated by them.
They prefer the poisonous species which, as its botanical
name Manihot utilissima implies, can be put to a multi-
plicity of uses. To eliminate the poison and render it fit
for food, the manioc is subjected to several processes. So
far as I could observe, or learn by leading questions, these
are roughly as follows :

The women bring the brown tubers of the manioc in
baskets from the plantation. On their way up they stop
by the river and cleanse the soil from the roots, which are
like a small beet in appearance, but white when peeled.
The manioc after it has been washed and soaked for a short
time is next scraped by means of a sharp wooden knife
in order to peel off the thin adhesive skin, similar in substance
to that of a potato, but if anything thinner. Sometimes the
women instead of using a wooden knife simply scrape the
skin off with their teeth. The peeled roots are washed in the
river again, and taken up to the house. Each root is then
cut longitudinally into three or four sections, which are
put in a bowl near the fire and left to soak for twenty-four
hours. When, at the end of this time, the manioc is suffi-
ciently softened, they place a piece or two of rotten manioc
in the bowl with the fresh stuff. The object of this is to
promote fermentation and thus to extract the poison from
the fresh root.

The next process is to mash the manioc, and for this
purpose it is all — both fresh and rotten — ^removed from the
pan and grated into a large wooden trough, with the special
implement that has black palm-spines inserted in the soft

^ Spruce, ii. 381. ' Manihot aypi.

132 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

wood for teeth. The grated pulp is removed from the
trough and put into a cyhndrical palm-cane wringer, the
cassava-squeezer which is used by the Boro, the Andoke,
the Resigero, the Okaina; and all tribes to the north. The
Witoto and other tribes on the south use a long rectangular
palm-fibre wringer, which is twisted to form a cylinder in
the same way as a puttee is wound round the leg. In this
elastic cylinder it is compressed till all the poisonous juice
has been drained away, when the remainder, a coarse kind of
flour, is placed in an open pan and left to get thoroughly dry.
Afterwards it is rubbed between the hands to make it
finer.i

The next operation is to sift this flour through a basket
sieve. Any coarse stuff that does not rub through the
sieve is thrown away. The fine residue is baked in a clay
platter, and should be turned over with the hands once
during the process. No water is added to the flour before
it is baked.

This flour is kneaded with water, put in a pan and cooked
over the fire. The result, the cassava bread, is leathery and
tough, and when one speaks of " bread " unleavened bread
must be understood. It is never allowed to brown, the outer
crust is merely hardened, and as a result the cassava cake
has always a raw uncooked taste. But I found that if one
of these native cakes were cut in small pieces and fried in
animal fat till crisply toasted, it was quite good eating,
better if anything than ordinary bread.

The Boro leave the starch in the cassava flour, so their
bread is more sustaining than Witoto bread, as Witoto
women remove the starch and use it for other purposes.^
Boro bread is also thicker, amd when pulled apart is of a
stringy consistency.

^ The description given by Fr. Pinto in Dr. de Lacerda's eighteenth-
century journal of the preparation of manioc flour by the Murunda Kafhrs
differs only from the Indian method in that the root is not squeezed,
merely soaked till " almost rotten," then dried and pounded (R.G.S.,
The Lands of Cazemhe, 1873, p. 129).

2 It would seem that the Boro use what is known in Brazil as Farinha de
aqua, and the Witoto make Farinha secca (cf. Spruce, i. 11-12). Brazilian
arrowroot and tapioca are products of the manioc prepared in different
ways. Only the Boro and Menimehe make Farinha de aqua.

PLATE XXXIV.

^"^^^fflK

^hI

^^,,,^0^* i<^S^MF^S^

^H^E^H

MtK^m

^ W t3'^jjBMK^^& / '^t'^^^^^iiim^M^BKk

BWKS^^^W

^V» ^ ^ ySiySg^^s^^g' -^^^^ffiii^B^f

^raHH^^H

\vi *s ^^' s^I^^^^^^^^^S^KjhBHr

if^SH^i

\^ ^'^iil^^^^M^^^fe^^^^^B^^

IkhHh

J^"^ 1 Vi*^ ; j^^>"^%^y^Jgg^^^ ^^By!

HffiH^^I

i^^wi

W, . ^ ■ ■ '-i_%^^''^^$I^H

Bhh

■B^^^^^ll^n

B||l||

IMBbI^^^^^^mI

^hH

^H^^^n^^^ ^a^^^^B

Hh^H

JJ^^^RBkB^^H^^H^S e "^t^^^^HI

I^^IH^H

IBa^^^^^imfl

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 133

Spruce mentions a manioc oven,^ but this is quite un-
known to me. All the tribes I visited cooked their cassava
on large earthenware plates on an open fire. Nor could
they prop their cooking utensils on stones, for — as has been
noted — stones there are none in these districts. The pot is
put simply on the three logs that compose the fire where
their ends meet. The hot embers in the centre give plenty
of steady heat, and if more be required the pot must be
placed on a tripod of branches and the embers fanned with
a palm-leaf to a flame.

Among the Andoke manioc is peeled by the women with
their teeth, and then washed. The roots are pulped with
a grater, and the starch is washed out by adding water to
them in a basket suspended on a tripod over a calabash.
The partially prepared manioc is left till required for use
and will keep in this state for a week at a time. When they
wish to use it the grated pulp is strained in a cassava-
squeezer, then mixed with starch and sifted through a
sieve. The fine stuff is baked immediately, and the water
that was drained oH in the wringer is boiled up at once
to make a sweet-tasting drink. The starch will keep for a
month.

Among the Boro and Witoto the manioc water is boiled
till it thickens, and is then used as a sauce into which the
cassava is dipped before it is eaten. Another way of
eating cassava is to dip it in soup. The Boro on the Japura
concoct a sauce of the consistency of paste by seasoning the
manioc water with peppers and fish.^

Though the tuber is the most valuable portion of the plant
it is not the only part used for food. The leaves may be
eaten as a vegetable. They are boiled till quite soft ;
pounded very fine with a pestle ; fish, worms, frogs, ants
and peppers are added as seasoning, and this brew is
eaten with cassava bread and with meat. Another method
of preparation is to take the leaves and cook them in the
water squeezed out of the roots in the wringer. This sauce

^ " A mandiocca oven (called budari in Barre) " (Spruce, ii. 477-8).
' Bates noted that he saw Indians on the Tapajos season this sauce with
ants in place of fish (Bates, i. 318-19).

134 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

is boiled in an earthenware pot suspended from a cross-
beam, or placed like the earthenware pan on a triangle of
sticks, over a slow fire, until the leaves become a paste.
This is carried in a palm-leaf as an emergency ration by an
Indian when going into the bush.

Cassava, then, is the Indian's " staff of life." Its com-
plement is the hot-pot, or pepper-pot, which is a " generous "
soup supercharged with meat that forms the staple, while
the liver and so forth are added to enrich the brew. It
is a standing dish with the aborigines. Each family has
a big pot that simmers constantly over the special
fires. Into this go all things, and it is replenished daily
from the proceeds of the kill. Portions of animals that may
not be eaten — blood, brains, intestines — can be utilised in
the stew ; and everything is very highly qualified with
peppers, the chief stimulant in native diet.

Wallace has suggested that the excessive use of peppers
is due to the lack of salt.^ This very serious need is not
without considerable influence on the Indian, and it is
possible — as has been suggested — that it is at the root of
more than over-indulgence in pepper. Mineral salt is not
to be had, 2 except by barter, throughout the middle Issa-
Japura regions; and what little the tribes can obtain is chiefly
secured by burning certain plants with saline qualities.^

On account of its rarity salt is much sought after, and a
present of salt is always highly appreciated.

The Indian feeds at sunrise after he has had his drink of
" tea " and his first bath. This morning meal is an informal
one of cold cassava cake, and any meat that may have been
left uneaten overnight, or a dip in the hot-pot. He eats
sparingly, and never takes much of a meal if a day's
march or a hunt is in prospect. Nor does he carry food

^ Wallace, p. 340,

2 Simson mentions salt-licks in the neighbourhood of the Rio Salado
Grande (Simson, p. 238).

^ The ashes of the drum tree {Cecropia peltata) " are saline and anti-
septic " (Spruce, ii, 447). " A kind of flour which has a saline taste" is
extracted from the fruits of the Inaja palm {Maximiliana regia), and the
Jara palm [Leopoldinia major), and the Caruru, a species of Lacis (Wallace,
p. 340). Cuaruru is given by Spruce as a native name for Pogostemon sp. ;
when this is burnt the ashes give salt (Spruce, ii. 520).

PLATE XXXV.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 135

with him, unless he be going on a journey. Coca,
which of course is but a stimulant, is sufficient sustenance
in his opinion. Still, he will eat a little at any time it may
be possible, and there is usually no lack of fruit for the
taking in the bush.

The great meal of the day is towards sundown when
the hunt is over, the quarry killed and cooked.^ Then
all the men, squatting round their private family fires
in the big house, help themselves from their hot-pot
and eat to the limit of its contents. An Indian will not
take a bite at his food ; he tears whatever he is eating into
small pieces with his fingers. Among the Issa-Japura tribes,
as with the Tukana, men and women do not eat together,
and the children feed with the women. None of the tribes
have any special observances or purifications before or after
eating, so far as I am aware, nor are there any general re-
strictions, except so far as carrion and the intestines are
concerned. But even these may at a pinch be made use of
without prejudice, by resorting to the simple expedient of
blowing, or rubbing with a magic stone, the two antidotes
for all evils with the Indian. There are temporary food
tabu for women, and certain prohibitions for children.
These \vill be dealt with later.

The usual method of cooking is to rest the pot as described
on the fire-logs themselves. Sometimes the pot is placed,
like the pan for baking cassava, on lumps of clay, or on a
triangle of sticks roughly made for the occasion. The sticks
must be long in comparison to the height from the ground
that is required, and are not tied, but merely so adjusted
that each supports and locks the others. Such a tripod
makes a firm seat, though never employed by the Indians
for that purpose. I have never seen pots hung. The pot
is covered with a single leaf, and the soup is stirred
with any stick that comes to hand at the moment ; there
are no special ones, nor are any fashioned for use as ladles.
Meat is almost invariably put in the hot-pot, but occasion-
ally it is toasted over the fire.

^ Cf. Torres Straits, " The chief meal of the day is taken at night,
soon after sundown; tlie remains are eaten in the morning," iv, 131,

136 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

When the women have cooked the food the men help
themselves from the pot ; they are not waited upon by their
women. An Indian will help himself from the hot-pot at
any time the fancy may seize him, or, for that matter, from
any hot-pot, so long as the owner thereof is present. The
tribal or chief's fire carries the tribal hot-pot, which is open
to all, as all contribute to it, at least all the unmarried
warriors must do so. This is the hot-pot which always
remains, and the fire that never dies out. The family hot-
pot and fire is the concern of each individual family only.

Fruit is to be had in plenty, and throughout the year
in this country of endless summer. Not being a botanist,
and aware that some of the most tempting fruits held
latent poison under an alluring exterior, I was most chary
of eating fruit unknown to me, and never touched any until
quite satisfied of its wholesomeness from its effects on the
Indians ; nor, mindful of the fact that the Indian will,
and apparently can, eat anything, would I venture to eat
many fruits the Indians partook of as a matter of course.
Sweet and ripened fruit is rarely eaten by them ; they prefer
a bitter taste, and, as mentioned in connection with sugar-
cane, have no particular use for anything sweet. The
Indian will gather fruit and bring it to the house, though
the usual custom is to pluck and eat it in the bush. So
far as I was concerned especially, it was brought in as a
present to denote good-will.

One fruit the Indians grow in the plantations resembles
and tastes like grapes.^ It is very plentiful, particularly in
the old plantations, and the Indian will often return to one
of these in order to obtain this fruit. Another fruit, also
found growing in old plantations, is the colour of a lemon,
and the size and shape of an orange. It is very good eating,
extremely sweet when ripe, with huge black pips, and the part
immediately imder the skin is gummy, like rubber latex,
and sticks to the mouth.

A fruit we knew as the mauve berry is found at the top
of trees. In size it approximates to a red currant, and it

* This is probably the puruma {Puruma Cecropiaefolia Martins) men-
tioned by Bates (Bates, ii. 217).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 137

grows in large bunches. The colour is a light pinky mauve.
It is intensely sweet, and according to popular report has
an intoxicating effect upon the eater. It certainly appears
to have very heady properties.

Various palms furnish palatable fruits. There is a small
edible palm from which the Indians strip the bark after they
have cut it down, and remove the cylinder of hardened sap
which is of the same consistency as a hard woody apple.
It is heavy but rich-flavoured and good eating. Then
there is the cabbage palm, not to mention the pupunha.

Nuts and seeds abound. There is a large oval seed in a
fleshy envelope that birds feed on freely, and another fruit
with a large stone is the wild alligator pear. The stone of
this is more than one-half the size of the whole fruit. It is
delicious in taste, and is looked upon by both whites and
natives as a great delicacy. In shape it resembles a pear,
and in colour it varies from green to yellow or russet.

CHAPTER X

Drinks, drugs, and poisons : their use and preparation — Unfermented
drinks — Caapi — Fermented drinks — Cahuana — Coca : its preparation,
use, and abuse — Parica — Tobacco — Poison and poison-makers.

If the Indian eats but little during the day, he drinks to
excess whenever opportunity offers. In the early morning
a beverage somewhat akin to tea, but colourless, made from
an infusion of bitter herbs, is taken. It has some tonic
properties, and when I drank it seemed always to have a
slight taste of peppermint. This herb infusion is the first
meal of the day. It is drunk out of half-gourds, after the
morning bath, before the members of the household disperse
to their varied avocations. I am under the impression that
this decoction is made from a species of grass, and not the
Ilex paraguayensis from which mate, or Paraguay tea, is
made. It is probably the lemon grass mentioned by Sim-
son.^ The Indians also scrape the seeds of the cap ana, mix
in some cassava flour, and wrap up the mass in plantain
leaves. This is left to ferment in water, till it is the colour
of saffron ; then it is dried in the sun. This is drunk as a
bitter tea in the morning when diluted in water.

The Indian drinks enormous quantities of water, or un-
fermented liquor, at times, and afterwards can abstain like
a camel for a considerable period. He never drinks when
eating, but afterwards. At a feast or a dance when he is
unable to drink more he simply pokes his fingers down his
throat, with the result that room is made for renewed doses
of his non-alcoholic beverage.

The principal unfermented drinks made by these tribes

^ Verba Luisa (Simson, p. 6i).
138

PLATE XXXVI.

ONE OF THE INGREDIENTS OF THE FAMOUS CURARE POISON

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 139

are prepared from manioc, and from various fruits. The
first is made from the grated manioc by merely squeezing
out and boiling the water, and is thus a by-product of cassava
in the making. This leaves a sweet drink, which is certainly
insipid and is not considered to be healthy. The moisture
squeezed out of the " squeezer " is boiled and boiled again
into a rather thick drink. This is used more as a sauce into
which cassava is dipped than as a " clean " drink. It still
contains, I believe, a minute percentage of hydrocyanic acid.

Another beverage is prepared from roasted pines. The
juice is squeezed out, and this liquid extract is ready to
drink without further process. Plantains, bananas, and
other fruits, grated and mixed with starch obtained from
the manioc tubers, are boiled and flavoured with local
spices to m^ake another concoction. A thick yellow liquid
prepared from the Patana palm is the national drink
of all these Indians, except the Menimehe and Kuretu,
who make fermented drinks from pine fruit. The Patana
fruit is boiled and broken with the hand in water, so as to
mix up the pulp and allow the heavy skins to fall to the
bottom of the pot. These and any fleshy remainder are
strained aw^ in a sieve, and cassava flour is added to the
liquid, which is drunk while warm. This drink is known as
patana-yukise in lingoa-geral. There is a vegetable milk
that is consumed by the Indians, which I take to be the cow-
tree milk mentioned by other travellers.^ I do not think it
is very plentiful in these regions, and for my own part never
saw nor tasted it. It is a creamy, sticky fluid, obtained
by lacerating the bark, that can be drunk when fresh. I am
certain these tribes do not use it for any cooking purposes,
and do not think it is ever stored in their houses, but is
only drunk in the forest from the tree.

There are intoxicating drinks among the Menimehe and
the tribes north of the Japura, but among some of these
northern tribes the men drink caapi,^ which is strongly erotic.

* This may be Mimusops sp. (Sapotacae) or Callophora sp. {Apon-
cynaccae) (Spruce, i. 50, 224 ; ii. 520). Bates, i. 69 ; Spruce, i. 51 ; Orton,
pp. 288, 500, 581.

^ Caapi is known as aya-huasca, the drink of Huasca, the greatest king
of the Inca, to the Zaparo and other tribes farther west (Spruce, ii. 424),

140 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

I would suggest that caapi is unknown to the tribes south of
the Japura, except probably to their medicine-men. It
would account for the frenzy of the latter when diagnosing
disease, and so forth, which quite corresponds with the
descriptions given by Spruce of the effect of caapi}

The plant from which caapi is prepared is grown in planta-
tions by Indians on the Uaupes and Issanna rivers,^ and by
other Rio Negro tribes. The drink is made from the stem,
mixed in a mortar by the Uaupes Indians with the roots of
the painted caapi.^ The pounded mass is rubbed through
a sieve, and water is then added. Women are not even
allowed to touch the vessel that contains the caapi. This
intoxicating liquor is unknown to me, but I heard that the
Karahone and other tribes had this strong drink. Though
known on the Uaupes to all the tribes it is said to have
only a confined use on the Rio Negro.

Other drinks that are to be found north of the Japura
are prepared from fermented maize, and manioc.^ Caxiri,
or manioc beer, is used by the Menimehe, the Ticano and
Kuretu. Tribes on the Napo drink masato, which is also
made from manioc that has been partly masticated by the
women and then left to ferment.^ They make another
fermented drink from bananas, but pines are principally
employed as they contain more sugar for fermenting pur-
poses.

Before a dance the women of the Issa -Japura region pre-
pare great store of kawana, a drink made from the yellow pulp
of a pear-shaped fruit, ^ not unlike a mango, with a large black
seed in the centre.' The liquid is stored in the large vessels
made by the primitive process of stripping off a sheet of

^ spruce, ii. 419-21.

- Banisteria Caapi (Spruce, ii. 414).

^ Haemadictyon amazonicum {ibid. p. 415). This is only added by the
Uaupes tribes.

^ Both Manihot utilissima and Manihot Aypi (Spruce, ii. 414).

^ Cf. Tylor, pp. 179-80.

^ Paullina cupana (Spruce, i. 180).

^ Guarana, " pro panacea peregrinantum hahetur " (von Martins), is made
from the roasted seeds. It is ' almost identical in its elements with theine
and caffeine " (Spruce, i. 181). It is cultivated on the Negro as an article
of trade. According to Bates it is made from the seeds of a climbing
plant {Paidlinia sorbilis) (Bates, ii. 134).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 141

bark and setting it end up on the hard ground, These are
usually to be found at the chief's end of the tribal house.
One of these impromptu vats will hold as much as thirty
gallons.

By far the most important of the stimulants taken by
these peoples are the preparations made from the leaves
of the common coca shrub.^ Coca is the mescal of the
Indian,^ and possibly a heritance from the Inca invaders of
bygone centuries.^ The use of coca is habitual, not inter-
mittent. An Indian will take as much as two ounces a
day.* All Indians use it, the Bara in especial being heroic
coca-takers.

To prepare coca for use the sage-green leaves are care-
fully picked and fire-dried. They are then pounded with
other ingredients in mortars made from small tree-trunks.
The pestle shown in the illustration is made of mahogany.
Beside the coca leaf the Indian pounds up lime that is pro-
cured by reducing to ashes certain palm leaves,^ baked clay
that is scraped from underneath the fire, and some powdered
cassava flour. Whether these leaf-ashes are a form of
calcium I do not know. In the Sierra powdered coca is
mixed with pulverised unslaked lime, or with the ashes of
the Chenopodium Quinoa. As this latter is one of the
distinctive Sierra flora, I presume the Indians of the forest
have found some substitute in the bush. The drug
is carried in a bag, or beaten-bark pouch, that is worn
suspended round the neck. The clay and palm-leaf ashes
certainly neutralise the bitterness of the pure leaf, and it is
possible that in these foreign ingredients the Indians have
discovered an antidote, if such there be, to the worst effects
of the drug.

The Indian by means of a folded leaf shoots the powder
into the cheeks on one or both sides. This when moistened
forms a hard ball, and with such a wad stuffed between

* Coca Erythroxylon. ^ Spix and von Martins, p. 153.

* Joyce, p. 97. * Markham, Peruvian Bark, p. 151.

* According to Bates the leaves of the candelabrum tree {Cecropia
palmata) are used (Bates, ii. 211-12). Spruce has the imbauba or drum
tree {Cecropia peltata) (Spruce, ii. 447) Markham gives the quinoa plant
(Markham, op. cit. p. 151).

142 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the cheek and the teeth he can go without sleep, food,
or drink, for several days. Coca is not swallowed, but
gradually absorbed and passed down with the saliva.^

As to cocainism, we know that the Indians are veritable
cocaino-maniacs, or rather coca-maniacs. It is a matter of
great regret to me that I was unable to make observations —
may I say psycho-medical observations — on Indians under
the influence of this drug. Perhaps it would be more
correct to say that it was not possible to observe one not to
some extent under its influence, for it must be remembered
that the use of the drug is so continuous that it is difficult —
one has hardly the opportunity — to differentiate. Whether
coca permanently injures the higher brain centres, as has
been suggested,^ is unknown to me, as unknown as the
Indians themselves before they developed the heroic use of
the drug. The evidences of its effect are contradictory in
the extreme, and vary in individual cases. In my own case
hunger and thirst were eliminated, but I was unable to
establish a tolerance for the drug, and after many vain
attempts gave it up, except when food was scarce and any-
thing was preferable to the pangs of hunger. I was certainly
able to make greater efforts without food, but its effects
were evanescent in the extreme, and were soon followed by
acute vomiting and cramp in the stomach. The nausea may
have been due to the foreign substances with which the
powdered leaves are mixed and not to the coca, but on that
point only a trained opinion could be of value.

Even on the question of its influence on the appetite it
is difficult to give any clear ruling. My own experience was
that it utterly destroyed the appetite. Possibly the Indians'

^ Re effects. Spruce notes that it had little effect on him (Spruce, ii.
448). One of my companions though " at first affected . . . with slight
nausea . . . soon became accustomed to it, and found it very useful on
many occasions " (Hardenburg, p. 137-8). This is interesting in relation to
my own continued intolerance. " In Peru its excessive use is said to
seriously injure the coats of the stomach " (Spruce, ii. 448). At Ega it
was regarded as a vice only to be indulged in secretly (Bates, ii. 211).
Markham, on the other hand, considers it " the least injurious, and the
most soothing and invigorating " narcotic (Markham, op. cit. p. 152). He
even recommends it as a preventative of loss of breath to Alpine climbers
{ibid. p. 153). With this I cannot concur.

^ See Appendix for this and other notes.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 143

" tolerance " accounted for the fact that despite the use of
the drug they invariably eat heartily when opportunity
permits.

The dilation of the pupil caused by the use of the drug is
marked in the Indian, and gives a curious expression to the
eye. On account of the darkness of the iris this is not so
markedly noticeable as would be the case with grey-eyed
peoples.

The Tuyuka and other tribes north of the Japura use as
a stimulant parica or niopo, a wonderful snuff which is a
strong narcotic, and very similar in its effects to coca.^ It is
made from the dried seeds of a mimosa, 2 and, like coca, is
mixed with quicklime,^ and baked clay.* The seeds are
roasted, and then pounded in a shallow wooden mortar, and
the snuff when made is packed in snail-shells ^ and is inhaled
through hollow bird-bones inserted in both nostrils. It is
used for curative purposes by the Uaupes Indians.^

The Menimehe and Yahuna tribes take snuff, but they
neither smoke nor lick tobacco. The Uaupes Indians
smoke enormous cigars,^ but none of the tribes south of the
Japura smoke their tobacco ; it is only licked. After the
tobacco leaves are gathered they are soaked, and then
pounded in a mortar by the men. Tobacco, it must not be
forgotten, is tabu to the women in any form, and it may be
noted here that tabu on drink and drugs is far stricter than
any tabu on food. The latter are intermittent, enforced only
in special cases, or at certain times or ages ; but the tabu
on coca, aya-huasca, caapi and tobacco is always binding

^ Spruce relates that a Guahibo told him, " With a chew of caapi and
a pinch of niopo . . . one feels so good ! No hunger — no thirst — no
tired ! " (Spruce, ii. 428).

^ Mimosa acaciodes (Bentham). " A species of Inga " (Bates, i. 331).
The seeds of Acacia Niopo (Humbolt). Piptadenia peregrina (L.) (Bentham
and Spruce, ii. 427).

2 The Guahibo use no quicklime (Spruce, ii. 426).

* This is curious, but I can advance no reason.

' Or " a bit of the leg-bone of the jaguar, closed at one end with pitch "
(Spruce, ii. 427).

* And by the natives on the upper Orinoco (Spruce, ii. 423).

" " Two feet long and as thick as the wrist " (Spruce, ii. 420). It " is
smoked in the ordinary way " A long cigar is also smoked on the Equa-
torial Pacific coast, but " held in the mouth at the lighted end " {ibid. p. 436),.
This is common amongst negroes.

144 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

on all women. A little thickened cassava starch is added,
which makes the mixture into a stiff dark liquid, to be used
either privately or ceremonially, as already described. The
tobacco-pot shown in the accompan3dng illustration is made
of a thick and hard nut-shell, with apparently natural holes
that are stopped with pitch.^ Two artificial holes have been
bored through for the string. It is about two and a half
inches long, by one and five-eighths wide. The oval hole at
the top is five-eighths of an inch across, and through it the
point of a stick is inserted when the tobacco is to be taken.

The ingenuity with which the Indians prepare cassava
flour, their staple provender, from a poisonous root, though
notable, is ordinary in comparison with the intricate pro-
cesses which the poor Indian's " untutored mind " ^ has
elaborated for the preparation of various poisons. Natural
poisons abound in the forest. There is one tree known as
the poison-tree and credited with most deadly properties.^
On the Issa and Japura an arrow-poison is made from putre-
fying animal matter mixed with strychnos. Good poison
is very rare, and very much in demand. The most potent
preparation is made by the Karahone, who have great
knowledge of poisons and are by far the cleverest toxi-
cologists. The Menimehe understand poisons to some ex-
tent, but are not the equals of the Karahone, from whom
most of the tribes obtain their poisons by barter. But
poison of some sort is always manufactured by every
medicine-man.

The most important poison is the curare,^ It is made
from two plants, called by the Witoto ramu and pani re-
spectively.^ The complicated recipe is a treasured heredi-
tary possession.^ The wood of the Strychnos toxifera is the

^ Like the eyes of a cocoanut — to allow passage to the budding rootlets.

2 Spruce, ii. 413-55. ' Bates, ii. 288.

* Also called curari, ourali. worara, woorari, urari, ervadura. " A
powerful South American arrow-poison occuring in commerce as a blackish
extract, somewhat resinoid in appearance," used for tetanus, hydro-
phobia, epilepsy {Diet. Mat. Med.).

^ Strychnos castelmoeana and Cocculus toxicoferus (Hardenburg, p. 136),

^ " Many ingredients are used, such as several kinds of barks, roots,
peppers (Capsicum), ants, and the poison-fangs of snakes" (im Thurn,
p. 311)-

PLATE XXXVII.

INCISED GOURDS

1. TOBACCO POT (WITOTO) 3. RATTLE (OKAINA)

2. „ „ (BORO) 4. (BORO)

5. RATTLE (WITOTO)

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 145

most necessary ingredient in the manufacture of curare. It
is pounded in a mortar, and the sap, mixed with water, is
strained and boiled with peppers, ants, and a variety of
more or less noxious material.^ When it is sufficiently
inspissated it is put into the small pots, about an inch
and a half in diameter, in which these Indians carry it
round their necks, in readiness to smear on the palm-spine
points of their darts, arrows, and javelins.^

^ Crevaux gives a long description of the preparation of this poison
(Crevaux, pp. 268-337).

' According to Bates, salt is considered to be an antidote for this poison
(Bates, i. 247).

CHAPTER XI

Small families — Birth tabu — Birth customs — Infant mortality — In-
fanticide— Couvade — Name-giving — Names — Tabu on names — Child-
hood— Lactation — Food restrictions — Child -life and training —
Initiation.

Though so recognised an authority as Bates is responsible
for the statement that the fecundity of the Amazonian
Indians is of a low degree/ because as many as four children
in one family are rarely found, it is open to doubt whether
he and his successors have not in this instance confounded
effect and cause. It is certainly true that the normal number
for a family is but two or three, yet that this is not a question
of fertility the high percentage of pregnant women would
seem to disprove.^ The numbers are remarkable in view
of the fact that husbands abstain from any intercourse with
their wives, not only during pregnancy but also throughout
the period of lactation — far more prolonged with them than
with Europeans. The result is that two and a half years
between each child is the minimum difference of age, and in
the majority of cases it is even greater.

The main reason why there are these limited families is, in
my opinion, not a diminishing birth-rate, but an enormously
high percentage of infant mortality. The test of the sur-
vival of the fittest is applied to the young Indian at the
very moment of his birth, for the infant is immediately
submerged in the nearest stream, a custom that easily leads
to infanticide in the case of an unwanted child, or one with
any apparent deformity.

^ Bates, ii. 200. This agrees with Darwin, Descent of Man, i. 128.
2 Dr. Gait considered " that there is no more fertile race than the pure-
blooded Indian of the Maranon " (Orton, p. 465).
146

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 147

Another accepted opinion with which I am not in agree-
ment is that these girls become mothers at a very early age,
and that when only fourteen years old themselves may have
already had two children, as is said of tribes on the Tikie.
My experience has been that these peoples do not arrive at
the age of physical maturity even so early as white races,
probably owing to lack of nourishing food and perhaps in
some degree to the retarding and depressing effect of the
forest environment.^

These Indians share the belief of many peoples of the
lower cultures that the food eaten by the parents — to some
degree of both parents — will have a definite influence upon
the birth, appearance, or character of the child.^ Before
the birth of an infant the mother has to submit to certain
definite food restrictions, which vary with different tribes
in some slight degree, but are all rooted in the same idea.
Among some tribes all animal food is forbidden to any
woman throughout the entire period of pregnancy, and this
precludes her from share in the tribal or family hot-pot.
Among the tribes of the Tikie and elsewhere tapir flesh is
prohibited, not so much because it is considered unhealthy,
which on account of its richness it certainly would be,^
but because if a mother partook of any it would be looked
upon as tantamount to allotting the visible characteristics
of the animal to the unborn child. From a like cause these
Indians imagine that the child would have the teeth of a
rodent did the mother eat capybara during the months of
her pregnancy ; it would be spotted like a paca if she ate
that beast ; or, if she ate bush-deer flesh, which is tabu to all
women after marriage among the Kuretu-language group,

^ Menstruation has been known to commence in England at the age of
eleven, generally in cases of well-nourished blondes, and in exceptional
cases even earlier. It has been known to occur at nine years, but this
was induced by a severe accident. This is unknown among the forest
people. I made out the age of puberty to be not less than fifteen for girls,
and eighteen for boys, among the tribes I was with.

* Cf. Thomson, The Fijians, pp. 179-80 ; Codrington, The Melanesians,
p. 228, etc.

' Tapir flesh is undoubtedly rich, and over-indulgence would have evil
effects iipon any woman independent of other conditions, for equally it
would upset a man.

148 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the venison would make the infant deformed. Peccary is
tabu among many tribes, and with the Witoto during the
last month of pregnancy the mother's food is limited to one
kind of small fish, with cassava and fruits.

The belief that ill will befall the imborn infant if the
mother do not regularly adhere to dietary laws is strictly
held by both men and women. To give birth to a deformed
or disfigured child is the most disgraceful calamity that
can happen to any woman, and therefore all possible
precautions must be taken, and any animals reputed to
possess undesirable characteristics are naturally forbidden,
lest the unborn child should in any way resemble
the appearance or take the characteristics of the animal
concerned. The prohibitions are, therefore, definitely tabus,
inasmuch as they are believed to entail the penalty of de-
formed or malignant progeny upon the transgressor, a belief
very binding on people who hold that to some extent the
consumer absorbs the characteristics of aught that is eaten.

Nor do all these tabus concern the mother only, for the
father also among some of the tribes must abstain from
meat a short time before, as well as after, the child's birth. ^
This recognition of a definite connection between the father
and the child, a more intimate connection than civiHsed
peoples recognise, is to be noted, and should be borne in mind
when considering the curious custom of the couvade, which
must be recorded anon.

Whatever the weather may be no accouchement ever
takes place within the house.^ When birth is imminent
the expectant mother .will go out into the forest with some
trusted older woman, or alone, for the Indian wife is quite
willing to take full responsibility without any further aid.
Among some of the tribes north of the Japura the mother
is accompanied to the forest, and assisted while there by

1 A tribe in British Guiana, the Macusi, carry this idea even further,
and impose such restriction on a man before his actual marriage (im
Thurn, p. 222). I have never met with this.

2 Wallace in his account of the Uaupes Indians states that " the women
are generally delivered in the house, and do no work for four or five days "
(Wallace, p. 345). This does not tally with the customs among the Issa
and Japura tribes, at least I never found it to be the case.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 149

other matrons, who have their faces painted red. But the
Boro and the Witoto women go unattended or with but one
female attendant. Neither the husband nor any other
man is permitted to be present whatever the circumstances.

The shelter of the forest gained, the woman makes a
small clearing, and spreads a bed of leaves on which she sits
down.^ Her trouble is not of long duration. When the
child is bom she ties the umbilical cord with fibre-string,
and then bites it through, ^ or cuts it with a wooden knife.
This done she at once proceeds to the nearest water and
bathes, after which she returns to the house. She wears
no covering or bandage.

The infant is taken with her to the river and is washed
and ducked. If it survive this drastic treatment its body is
covered with what the Witoto call hittagei, that is, rubber
latex, over which a brown or red clay is smeared. Harden-
burg relates that he was told this was done by the Witoto
" in order to keep it warm." ^ I have often seen the process
carried out, but the warmth theory never occurred to me,
and none of the Indians suggested it as a possible reason or
gave any explanation of the custom.

As I have said, with all these tribes infant mortality is
very great. The custom of submerging the new-bom child
undoubtedly causes an immense increase in the number of
deaths. This led me to inquire why they persisted in such
a fatal course, but one and all said that if the child was not
strong enough to survive it had better die. This is the
Indian attitude, and explains much of the seemingly ignorant
or harsh treatment to which young children are subjected.

Indians do not care to have large families. To support
a number of children would often be a matter of grave
difficulty.* But foeticide is not practised, and abortion is

* These Indians adopt a sitting, i.e. continental (not English left lateral)
position for parturition.

* For similar treatment elsewhere see Schomberg, Reisen in Britisch
Guiana, ii, 66.

' Hardenburg, p. 135.

* I cannot help thinking that some infanticides may be due to the fear
by the wife that the husband would refrain from the fulfilment of his
debitum conjugate did he find that it resulted in his having to support an
unduly increasing family.

150 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

probably unknown except to the medicine-men, who would
only procure it for their own purposes or protection. Should
destruction for any reason be desired, the birth would be
allowed to take place, and the child afterwards killed
*' accidentally " during the subsequent lustration. Bastard
children are undoubtedly destroyed, and the second of twins
is left in the bush by the mother before immersion ; or,
among some of the tribes of the Kuretu, if the babies are
of both sexes it is the girl that is killed, whichever may
have been born first. Otherwise they kill the second,
because it is obvious that the second is the transgressor,
it had no right to come, and it is a disgrace to bear twins,
as these people hold the opinion that to be delivered of more
than one child at a birth is to lower themselves to the level
of the beasts. The act of killing is performed by the mother
secretly, at the parturition if possible, and the body would
be concealed by her in the bush.^

The act is not due merely to cruel or callous disregard of
infant life. If to be sickly and deformed is an undesirable
state, the Indian sees no reason why any unfortunate being
should be condemned to live in such a condition ; and, more-
over, the sufferer must handicap others as well as itself in the
strenuous race of life. Therefore deformed children are
never seen. A child that is discovered to be in any
degree abnormal or sickly at birth is allowed to die on
immersion, by the very simple method of holding it under
water till life is extinct. If, however, the deformity is
not discovered till after the child has been brought
to the tribal house, the medicine-man is called in to deal
with the case. If the mischief be beyond his power to
remedy, he declares that it was caused by some evil spirit

1 Infanticide is a subject open to unlimited misapprehension and
misrepresentation. Compare with the above, for instance, the statements
of a missionary among some of the Indian tribes farther south. Mr. Grubb
speaks of " a shrill cry of pain when a child perhaps has been cruelly
murdered " {An Unknown People in an Unknown Land, p. 17). A reviewer
with much knowledge and experience of Paraguay, remarks, " I never
remember hearing the women's shrill cry of lamentation. The children
are killed almost immediately after birth, as secretly as possible, and no
one pays much attention to the fact " (Seymour H. C. Hawtrey, for R.A.I.).
This is certainly the case with the Issa and Japura groups.

PLATE XXXVIII.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 151

and may work ill to the tribe,^ so as a precautionary
measure the wretched little creature is taken out and
left exposed in the forest, or some tribes go as far as
to bury it alive.^ This is done with no intention to
cause unnecessary suffering, but simply that as it had
to die it might as well die by suffocation as by any other
means.

If there were an epidemic of deformed or sickly cases
among the newly born it would most probably lead to a
tribal blood-feud, as it would be most assuredly put down
to the evil intention and craft of some enemy. Who the
latter might be it is the province of the medicine-man to
determine.

Except in the above instances intentional infanticide is
not common. Unintentionally it would seem to be very
frequent. It might further be resorted to in time of famine,
if lactation should be difficult or if the mother were to die.^
I know of one case where a child on the death of the mother
was thrown to the dogs — wild dogs are the voracious beasts
of the forest. On another occasion the infant was buried
with its dead mother, though this would not have been done
had any one been willing to adopt it. Both these cases
occurred among the Witoto.

Koch-Griinberg found that among the Tuyuka the houses
have a small chamber at the end where a man and his wife
stay after the birth of a child. There is no such thing among
these tribes.

The day after her delivery the mother presents the infant
to its father, and then, as though nothing had happened,
goes back to her work in the plantation, and spends the
day toiling in the fields as usual. She will only return to
feed the child at night. But the father remains in the house
with the baby, for he in his turn must submit to definite
tabus, the restrictions and prohibitions of that curious
custom known as the couvade, " a live growth of savage

^ Among the Ucayali deformed children are killed because they " belong
to the devil " (Orton, p. 321),

^ A similar practice is reported among the Kuni of British New Guinea
(Williamson, The Mafulu, p. 178).

' Among Zaparo tribes also this is the case (Simson, pp. 175, 183).

152 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

psychology/' as E. B. Tylor calls it.^ The baby Hes in a
hammock and the father lounges in his, and there, with some
tribes, he will remain for from three to six weeks. ^ The
Witoto are more casual in this observance than the Boro.
Colour seems to be given to the theory that couvade marks
a stage of emergence from matrilineal to patrilineal or-
ganisation, by the fact that among those tribes where relation-
ship is counted on the father's side couvade is apparently
practised far less strictly, and only in a limited form, as
compared with the descriptions of couvade given by other
writers among tribes such as those Sir Everard im Thurn
studied in British Guiana, where definitely matrilocal
customs are still extant.^ But, however limited the re-
strictions, in all cases the father abstains from hunting until
the child's navel is healed. He must not touch his hunting
weapons even,* nor may he eat the flesh of any animal that
has been hunted, which, as regards animal food, is practi-
cally the same tabu as exists for the mother before the child's
birth. Fish and cassava form his diet, but coca is not tabu.
Yet, despite his enforced deprivations, the Indian father
enjoys himself. He has, in fact, a very easy time of it,
which may go to confirm him in his quite genuine belief
that his actions are of substantial benefit to the child.^
Friends will assemble in numbers to express their joy at the

* Early History of Mankind, p. 247.

* This is one of the many supposed indications of a possible Asiatic
origin of these peoples, " remnants of a race driven into the mountains by
the present dwellers in the plains," as Tylor says of the Miau-tsze, who
also practice the couvade {op. cit. p. 295). The practice is as widespread as
the performance of the medicine-man or shaman, though not invariably
an accompaniment of so - called shamanism or kindred performances :
for example the Arunta have medicine - men but do not practise the
couvade, the Basque people have couvade but no medicine-man,

* In support of this theory note that in Melanesia proper couvade has
only been observed " where the child follows the father's kindred "
(Codrington, p. 228).

* According to one writer some Indians go so far as to remove all
weapons and furniture from the house (Clough, p. 104),

^ With the Issa-Japura tribes the father is subjected to no such torturing
processes at the hands of his friends as are recorded of other tribes and
peoples, " in such sort that from being sick by pure imagination they often
make a real patient of him " (Tylor, loc. cit. p. 288 et seq. ; J. A ./. xviii. 248 ;
cf. also Crevaux, Spix, and Martius, p. 381 ; Schomburg, Reisen in Britisch
Guiana, ii.).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS i53

happy event ; they will even come from great distances for
this purpose. There is much talk, and all exchange coca
and lick tobacco. In the midst of the congratulations the
medicine-man will arrive to deliver his opinion, given after
due consideration, of the points of the new-born. Con-
gratulations will be interspersed with numerous ventral
grunts, as signs of assent and approval, with the decisions
enunciated, on the part of the proud parent or his visitors.
The orations will be interrupted by the ceremonial licking
of tobacco between the medicine-man, the father, and his
visitors.

After eight days the child will be named by the medicine-
man and the assembled family. The name given among all
these tribes is generally that of the father's father, if the
child be a boy. With the exception of further ceremonial
tobacco-taking there is no ritual.

Boys are called as a rule by the names of animals or birds; ^
girls are given the names of plants and flowers. For instance,
among the Boro a common masculine name is Pimwe,
which is the name of a white water-bird ; or Eifoike among
the Witoto, eifoike being their name for the turkey-buzzard.
My own name among the Witoto was Itoma, which means
the sun, that sound being the nearest to Thomas that they
knew. The Boro called me Pimwe, the white ibis, on account
of my white bath-gown.

No Indian ever uses his name, nor is he called by it when
spoken to by his companions.^ One will speak to another
as tanyahe^ that is to say, " brother," or lero,^ Moma,^ that is,
" father " ; in the case of a woman it would be Gwaro,^
Rinyo* which is *' mother," or Tanyali^ " sister." They will
never address each other in more direct fashion, and if one
of the speakers is not a member of the household, and there-
fore no relationship exists between them, they will make
use of some expression equivalent to our " comrade,"

^ Bird names, as is commonly the case in South America, are attempts
to repeat the cry of the birds themselves. Kweko, for instance, is a most
suggestive name for a parrot. Birds, it may here be noted, very seldom
sing in Amazonia.

' See Brinton on this subject. Religions of Primitive Peoples , p. 196.
Cf. Howitt. p. 739. 3 Witoto. * Boro.

154 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

" man," " giii," or other generality. The Boro, when they
wish to call the attention of a man, cry Mupe I of a woman,
Muijel As I obviously stood in no relationship to any of
my companions, the usual congenital term of address could
not be used in my case, and if I chose to run the risk of
giving my enemies power over me through knowledge of
my name that was my own affair.

This objection to divulging the name is too widespread
to need comment.^ The Indian of the Upper Amazons is
on this point not so far removed from our own old-fashioned
country-folk. 2 But at the same time, though they would
not divulge their own names they were invariably most
curious to get hold of mine, and made great efforts to pro-
nounce it. Whiffena was the usual outcome of such attempts.
I also found that the Indians had no objection to making
use of any name I might give to them, presumably because,
not being their true name, no magical dangers were possibly
incurred through its use, such as would be probable did I
call one of them by his or her own proper name.^

Among some tribes the name of a deceased person will
be given to some surviving relative.* This is looked upon
as an honour to be bestowed on the greatest friend of the
deceased,^ and thereafter this new name is considered his
private name, and the one originally his thenceforth ceases
to concern him in any way.

With the naming of a child the formalities connected with
its birth are at an end, and once the navel is healed the
father's share in the ceremonials is completed. With his
return to ordinary life the infant reverts to the charge of
the mother. Day and night the child remains with her. It
is carried out into the fields when she sets forth on her day's

^ Cf . Tylor, Early History of Mankind ; im Thurn, p. 220 ; Hodson,
Naga Tribes, p. 176 ; Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. p. 139 ; Brinton, p. 195,
etc. ; Seligmann, p. 140 ; Andr6, p. 16 ; Lang, Origin of Religion, etc.

^ See Folklore Journal ; Mitchell, Past in the Present.

' Every Indian man has two names, his own name and his secret
name (name of genitalia). The latter is generally a significant name, and
is used in ribald jesting round the fire, e.g. " the Okaina (a rodent) went to
the stream to bathe," etc. etc., ad nauseam.

* The converse of this holds good elsewhere, for the names of the dead
are often tabu. See Rivers, Todas, pp. 625-6 ; Tylor, p. 142 ; Brinton,
PP- 94-5- ^ Brinton, p. 197.

PLATE XXXIX.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 155

toil among the manioc and pines, and is brought back to
the fireside at night when she returns to cook the evening
meal. The Witoto women, in common with other tribes
in the vicinity, carry their infants in a sling of beaten bark-
cloth that is passed round the forehead and hung as a bag
behind. At a less tender age they will seat them on the
hip, and small girls may often be seen with a smaller brother
or sister astraddle round their waists.

The Indian mother will suckle her young for three years,
or even longer, and at least during the earlier nursing will
have no connection with her husband. This long period of
lactation is certainly due in a measure to the scarcity of
food. There is no artificial supply or substitute obtainable
in place of the natural provision. If the mother cannot feed
it the child must starve. The child is fed wherever the
mother's duties may take her. On many occasions I have
seen a child that is running about and playing, suddenly
toddle up to the squatting mother intent on her cassava
making, and still standing suck for a few moments and then
toddle away. Not less remarkable is it to see the women
milk themselves into a palm-leaf, a very usual custom after
the children's teeth develop. The leaf is rested on the palm
of the hand, which gives it the necessary cuplike form, and
from this the child is fed.

The prohibitions with regard to certain foods that affected
the parents before and immediately subsequent to child-
birth, continue in force afterwards so far as the children are
concerned. Such tabus are more strictly enforced on the
girls than on the boys ; and their diet is neither plentiful
nor seemingly of the most nourishing description. Cassava
cakes and fruits are permitted them, and some of the smaller
bony kinds of fish among fish-eating tribes, but none of the
better kinds of fish, and no game, until they attain maturity.

There is no childhood as others know it for the little
Indian. By this I mean no innocent childhood. These
forest children from birth see all the life of their elders, hear
all things openly discussed, and the very games and jests
of the babies are tainted with what we should consider
obscenity.

156 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Children are primarily under the authority and protec-
tion of the father, but any authority on the parent's part
is very slight, and ceases to exist altogether where the
boys are concerned once the age of puberty is reached. Of
course even a married son shows respect to a father if they
are living in the same house. Girls, as they are in the
care of their mothers or some responsible elderly matron of
the tribe until their marriage, must be more under authority ;
and virginity, as with us, is strictly protected so far as is
possible.^ But in the main it may be said that parental con-
trol is only a semblance, and filial piety, so characteristic of
the Inca and the Chinese, is practically unknown : indeed,
though the smaller children seem very fond of their parents,
after a few years it appears to be almost fashionable to dis-
regard parental authority entirely.

A child is not considered responsible for any damage
it may contrive to do. If it commit any mischief that
entails loss to others compensation is claimed from the
parents, but no chastisement would in consequence be
meted out to the little offender. Children are never beaten,
whatever their offences, and rarely punished. They are
looked upon as the potential warriors and mothers of
warriors, and treated very differently to the old and worn,
who may be left to forage for themselves. The parents, in
fact, show great affection for their children, despite the
stoical way in which infant lives are sacrificed. Often have
I seen the father, who would on no account carry food or
any part of his woman's burden, however heavy, give his
small son a lift over the bad ground. Although he will
never play games with his children as western folk do,
the Indian father will do his best to please the youngsters
and make them happy. He will make little javelins, a
small blow-pipe, a toy sword for the boys. They have their
miniature weapons from the tenderest years, and imitate
their fathers in all that they do, just like the girls, who go
with their mothers to the plantations, and take a share in
women's work as their form of play, and shoulder a share of
women's burdens when hardly more than babies themselves.

* Pace Ratzel, ii. 128.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 157

Their games, in short, are all mimetic. They have no games
with string or balls.

It follows naturally enough that there is little or no
elaborate ritual of initiation among most of these tribes,
so far as I was able to ascertain, for no part of a man's life
is kept secret from a child. The elders simply take the
young of each sex apart and teach them. Nor is there
much ceremony on the attainment of the young warrior to
tribal rank. He has been instructed by the elder men
as to the ways of hunting ; he is allowed to join a tobacco
palaver ; he is presented by the chief with a pouch of coca ;
he is permitted to lick tobacco, and he afhrms as he does so
that he will bear himself bravely on all occasions. There
is no further formality, and thus he enters the ranks of the
fighting men. Among the Bara after a Jurupari dance all
the youths of pubertal age are whipped, which is considered
to be initiation. The whipping instrument, made from the
hide of the tapir, is sacred. Women are excluded from this
ceremony, and they believe when the boys shout that it is
the expulsion of demons. The performance is regarded
as strictly private, and if a man or boy tells of his experience
he is outcast.

For the girls there are some secret lodges in the bush.
But how far this is an Indian custom, how far a recent
development for purposes of defence, I was not able to
ascertain. The matter is not one on which the Indian is
ever communicative. Certainly among all the tribes in the
vicinity of the much-feared and ever-raiding Andoke, the
girls who are bordering on puberty are segregated in the
depths of the forest under the protection of old and
wise women of the tribe. This may not be general, and I
do not think it is a universal custom. It is done by these
tribes principally, I take it, for the protection of the flower
of their womanhood, to prevent the mothers of warriors-to-
be from falling into the hands of the restless thieving Andoke.
At the same time the girls are under instruction of their
keepers, they are taught in these lodges presumably the
duties that will shortly fall to their lot. They learn to
dance, to sing, and to paint themselves for festivals. It is

158 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

no unusual sight to see a party of small girls painting each
other, if by chance one haps across a secret lodge. This is,
I take it, in the way of practice, the Indian girl's version
of her civilised sisters' " dressing-up " games.

The girls' isolation is not absolute. There is always
communication between the hidden lodge and the tribal
house, but such communication is made with due care,
no path is ever cut or worn to the hiding-place, and if
one develops by usage it is speedily blocked the moment
it is noticeable. When no inimical raiders are about, and
all is considered safe, the girls repair to the tribal house,
but no girl is allowed to return to the tribe for good until
such time as a marriage has been arranged for her.

One writer on the Jivaro tribes mentions festivities held
when a four-year old child is first initiated into the art of
smoking.^ This could never occur among any of the tribes
on the Japura or the Issa, where it has been seen tobacco is
only licked. Boring the ears, nose, and lips of the adol-
escent is done when they go to the lodges at the age of
puberty. It is very carefully carried out, and is probably
done with their ordinary boring instrument, the tooth of a
capybara. Among the Menimehe the tribal marks are
tattooed on face and breast at this time.

I have not met with the custom mentioned by Sir Clement
Markham as existing among the Mariama, of a man cutting
lines near the mouth of his twelve-year-old son, nor has the
scourging of the Omagua, and their trial of the girls by
hanging them in a net to smoke them, come under my
observation, any more than the cruel scourging of girl
children mentioned by Clough,^ though boys on the Apa-
poris are thrashed, and I have heard of the custom north
of the Japura. The Jurupari dance as described by so many
authorities, and the girls' whippings, as noted by Wallace,^
have been told me second-hand by these tribes. I have
never seen either, and south of the Japura I believe such
customs to be unknown.

* Simson, p. 92 ; Ratzel, ii. 128. ^ Markham, Clough, p. 104.

* Wallace, p. 360.

CHAPTER XII

Marriage regulations — Monogamy — Wards and wives — Courtship —
Qualifications for matrimony — Preparations for marriage — Child
marriages — Exception to patrilocal custom — Marriage ceremonies — ■
Choice of a mate — Divorce — Domestic quarrels — Widowhood.

At the beginning of my stay among the tribes, I thought, as
many have asserted, that polygamy was common among the
Indians. The reason for this behef is simply the fact that
it is extremely hard to distinguish at first between wives,
concubines, and attached women — women under the pro-
tection of a man, but not necessarily in intimate relation.
Inquiries do not immediately assist any conclusion. If, for
example, you question one of the attached women she would
merely reply, " I am the chief's woman," which answer
would have been equally correct in either case. But on better
knowledge of their languages and customs the conviction was
forced on me that monogamy and not polygamy is the rule,
with the exception of the chiefs north of the Japura, who
have, so far as I could make out, more than one wife. Koch-
Griinberg affirms, and other tribes told me, that among the
tribes on the Tikie a chief may have four wives. This is not
the case south of that river, where chiefs, like ordinary
members of the tribe, have only one.

But in addition to his wife or wives, all female prisoners
and any unattached women belong by right to the chief.
He is their father, mother, and husband, in so far that they
receive his protection, though the wife would not permit
any intimacy, unless it were when she was bearing or nursing
a child. These women are not to be regarded, however, as
what the Witoto call rinyo kachirete, that is tribal prostitutes,
although other members of the tribe beside the chief are
159

i6o THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

allowed to have access to them when his consent has been
gained. The prisoners certainly would be used with his
permission as women of convenience. So far as I could
gather the chief respects the chastity of his wards, and it is
therefore unlikely that he would claim any droit de seigneur
where the other women of the tribe are concerned.^ Le-
tourneau is responsible for the statement that " in America
from the land of the Esquimaux to Patagonia, the loan of
a wife is not only lawful but praiseworthy." ^ I have never
heard any suggestion of, jus utendi et abutendi, and consider
it unlikely in view of the Indian's character. He is not only
a jealous husband but the rights of the wife are tacitly
recognised, and I should conclude that such a custom would
be entirely alien to Indian nature. The same argument
holds good in the case of a daughter.

To distinguish between wards and wives is so great a
difficulty that I even hesitated to accept without further
confirmation the account given by Wallace of polygamous
practices among the Isanna and Uaenambeu tribes,^ careful
as he was over all details of things about which he had
personal knowledge. But I also was told by all tribes
north of the Japura that it is permissible to have more
than one wife, though the first must retain the position of
"mistress of the house."* It possibly resolves itself into
the question of whether the women greatly out-number
the men at a particular period or not.

Marriage with these Indians is not a matter of any great
or prolonged ceremony or even of festival. A youth marries
as a matter of course when he reaches man's estate. Till
he has taken to himself a wife he must remain in some
degree dependent either on his parents or the chief ; for
he cannot plant his own manioc or tobacco, nor can he cook
his own food. He has no one whose duty it is to see that

^ According to Waitz the Carib medicine- man was accorded the jus
primae noctis {Anthropologic der Naturvolker, iii. 382) ; Westermarck, p. 76.
Von Martins also attributes this custom to certain Brazilian tribes, the
chief, not the medicine-man, claiming the right (i. 113, 428, 485).

^ Letourneau, The Evolution of Marriage, p. 52.

3 Wallace, p. 355.

* This is quite usual of course. See Westermarck, pp. 445-7.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS i6i

there are no thorns or jiggers in his feet, to paint him for
a dance, to prepare him store of drinks. Complete inde-
pendence comes only when with his own woman he can, if
he so pleases, go his own way, and live in solitude out in the
forest or have his own fire in the shelter of the big maloka,
just as it suits his whim. To secure this independence, to
get his woman, he is required in the first place to show that
he is a capable hunter and warrior, that is to say he must
demonstrate the fact that he can feed and protect a wife
and children.^ But there is no scheme in any way approxi-
mating to the customs of those African peoples who rule
that a man must have killed his man before he can be con-
sidered a proved warrior, and qualified for matrimony.
It is sufficient if he be a hunter by repute in the generality
of cases, though among the Uacarra and some other tribes,
as noted by Wallace, an exhibition of skill is demanded.^
A girl of these tribes will not marry a man who did not
prove a good shot in an archery trial held for the purpose
of testing his prowess, the reason alleged being that he
cannot be sufficiently adept to maintain a family. This
is the underlying idea in all the ceremony attached to the
transaction of marriage among these Indians, of a piece
with all their doings and sentiments. There is no use for
the unfit. It is the philosophy of the forest in practical
form.

Further, in view of his prospective position as husband
and father, there are certain preparations, elementary
enough, to be made by the bridegroom. From the surround-
ing forest a plot of land must be reclaimed, the trees felled
and uprooted, the soil broken and roughly tilled, for the
plantation. This is an absolute necessity, the agricultural
is far more vital than any housing problem, for that is a
point easy enough to settle, as the intending bridegroom
need not build himself a house at all, if he can obtain a
comer in the great house of assembly. There is nothing
to prevent him from building one on his own account if he
is not content with the quarters there allotted to him, though

* Cf. custom among the Muskoks (Ratzel, ii. 125. See also im Thurn,
p. 221 ; Westermarck, p. 18). 2 Wallace, p. 346.

i62 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the usual arrangement is for a man to bring his wife to Hve
with his family rather than to start a separate establishment.

Betrothals are often made in childhood by arrangement
between the parents, and occasionally a small boy is married
to a small girl. This is not common, but I have seen it done
in the case of a chief more than once. On one occasion that
I remember it was among the Andoke, another time it was
in a Boro house. The ceremony is the same as for adults,
but naturally only in form. Among some tribes of the
Andoke such child marriage is allowed if the boy has made
a plantation and successfully hunted an animal, and either
his or, more rarely, the girl's family will admit them to
joint life, and one Witoto man told me that he had been
married as quite a youngster. But the general disparity of
age is from five to fifteen years, for a man will choose an
undeveloped girl, perhaps only nine or ten years old, and
hand her over to the women of his own family.^ The
Andoke usually marry girls much younger than themselves,
and I have seen a man of twenty with a tiny girl-wife hurry-
ing after him. Undoubtedly the idea is the same as that
underlying infant marriage in India, the man seeks to gain
affection by association. The girl lives with him and his
people, they become to all intents and purposes her people ;
she is trained by custom to their habits of life, must natur-
ally imbibe their ideas, and will bring no foreign notions of
manners or morals to disturb the equanimity of the common
household when, in due time, she attains pubescence, and
is made a wife de facto as well as de jure?

In the ordinary run of events the woman invariably
comes to live with the man's family, he never goes to hers.
Only in rare cases have I heard anything approaching the
matrilocal customs noted among the Indians of British
Guiana.^ These cases would be exclusively when a chief,

^ Westermarck puts the disparity of years at from five to six among
natives of Brazil {op. cit. p. 137 ; Spix and Martins, ii. 248),

2 This invariably takes place in the forest, for no iiitimacy, even
between husband and wife, is ever permitted in the publicity of the
house. According to Westermarck a similar custom prevailed in Fiji
{op. cit. pp. 15 1 -2), but this is denied by Thomson, The Fijians, p. 202.

3 im Thurn, pp. 186, 221.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 163

who has no son, marries his daughter to some man with a
view to obtaining an heir through her. The man might be
selected from friendly neighbours, or, with the approval of
the tribe, an adopted son of the chief might be chosen. If
the former, the bridegroom would have to leave his own
people and live with his father-in-law. How exceptional
this is may be judged from the fact that it is the sole cir-
cumstance of which I am aware where disregard is permitted
to the prevailing rules of patrilocal and exogamous customs.
This is, however, hearsay only. I never met with a case in
point, though the Indians told me of it.

Individual preliminaries settled, it remains for sanction
to be obtained from the chief of the girl's household — to
whom, it must be remembered, all unattached women
belong — ^with which end in view the would-be bridegroom
presents him with a pot of tobacco and one of coca.^ He
need ask no one's consent of his own account, as in marriage
the man has an absolutely free hand, unless he goes against
tribal law by marrying a girl of any hostile tribe who
might prove to be a danger to the community. As proof
that he is a man of substance and owns a house, or has a
recognised right to quarters in one, he will bring a piece of
palm shingle that has been left over after the thatching, to
the father of the selected damsel. He also brings a small
tree cut through, to show that he has cleared and made a
plantation. In both cases the form would appear to be
accepted without the actuality. The father then produces
some coca and tobacco. North of the Japura they will
chew pataca,^ and they will lick tobacco ceremonially to-
gether. There is no further ceremony, and a fortnight
later the marriage is consummated, the girl remaining with
her own people during the interval. ^

Robuchon and Hardenburg, in dealing with this formality
of presenting wood, have taken the action to be that the

1 As De Morgan remarked of a somewhat similar practice among the
Sakai of Perak, this is a form of marriage by purchase " modified by the
smallness of the price paid ... a purely formal substitute " {Bulletin de
la Sociite Normande de Geographie, vii. 422 ; Skeat and Blagden, ii. 60-61.

' Or potacea, a nut of bitter taste the size of an acorn.

' See von Martins, i. 113 For similar instances cf. Westermarck, p. 151.

i64 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

suitor wishes to provide his future parents-in-law with a
supply of firewood. Though in other details of marriage
ceremonial they are exactly correct, both these authorities
seem to have mixed the idea of firewood — a matter it is
never the son - in - law's business to prepare — with this
symbolic offering, which is intended to signify that his
patch of ground for cultivation is prepared and only waiting
for the woman to plant and cultivate it.

If the information given me about tribes north of the
Japura is correct, a more primitive marriage custom
still maintains among their neighbours. The suitor,
accompanied by his father and other relatives, visits the
father of the chosen lady. Notice of the arrival having
duly been sent, the object of such a formal visit is under-
stood, though not definitely stated beforehand. If the
suggestion meets with favour the visitors are welcomed
with a feast. Two or three days later, in the middle of the
festivities, the bridegroom's party suddenly kidnap the
bride, without any show of opposition on the part of her
friends and family. She is carried off to the visitors'
canoes, and the pair thenceforward may consider themselves
to be man and wife without further ceremony.^ Though I
never met with this custom in the districts near the middle
Issa and Japura rivers, all the tribes told me of it, and
among the Kuretu, so I was informed, the ceremony is
even more suggestive of marriage by capture, as it is a point
of honour for the bride to scream and protest while the
groom carries her off with mock assistance from his friends.^

In every marriage the contracting parties are allowed
complete freedom of choice. This is absolute on the part of
the man, and, with the rare exception of young girls adopted
into a family with a view to marriage, equally so on the
part of the woman. The unmarried women are never
objects of barter. The man neither pays for his wife, nor
does he receive dowry with her With marriage he assumes

* This confirms the account given by Wallace, p, 346 ; von Martins,
i. 600.

2 See for similar etiquette, Alcedo-Thompson, Dictionary of America
and the West Indies, i. 416 ; E. R. Smith, The Aurocanians, p. 215 ; Wester-
marck, pp.383-4-

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 165

entire responsibility for wife and family. Girls rarely refuse
an offer made to them. They occupy an inferior position
in the family compared with that of the sons. By education
and custom they are subservient to the wishes of the elders.
As they grow older and have to take their share of the
communal work they lose what independence they had as
irresponsible children. By marriage alone can the native
girl obtain a comer of her own in the maloka, a desirable
sleeping-place beside the fire. A man is not forced upon her
against her will. One bachelor is to all intents and purposes
as eligible as any other. Personal appearance, where all
who attain puberty are of necessity healthy and well formed,
counts for little. The battle of Eugenics is fought at birth
not at marriage. Whereas a boy becomes independent
almost from the date of his first breech clout, the girl has her
freedom curtailed with each succeeding year. Food tabus
have schooled her appetite. She has suffered the restraints of
the secret lodge. Marriage is her destiny, she neither knows
nor desires an alternative. Such an upbringing does not make
for capriciousness where choice of a husband is concerned.
She can always run away if her husband prove displeasing,
but in the majority of cases, unless subjected to very decided
ill-usage, it never enters into the head of any wife so to
behave. Peoples who will submit to the tyranny of a few
blackguardly oppressors, and make hardly an effort in self-
defence, do not rebel against the obvious in everyday life.
Pia, "it is so," makes as much for demoralising inertia
as Kismet. In short, there is no coercion in an Indian girl's
wedding, and equally no opportunity for original selection.
This question of personal acquiescence rules throughout
their matrimonial relations, for with these Indians the
marriage contract is only binding so long as husband and
wife desire to be bound. Divorce is simple. For good
cause shown the husband can rid himself of his wife, and
be free to try for better fortune with another. He has only
to bring the matter up in tobacco palaver, and if he can
make good his cause he need not trouble further : he is free.^

^ This seems to be the same as the Hottentot custom (Kolben, Present
State of the Cape of Good Hope, i. 157).

i66 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Infidelity, bad temper, disease, laziness, disobedience, or
childlessness, is deemed a sufficiently weighty objection in
a wife to warrant such action. Tribal opinion is in every
case the chief criterion in the business.

On the part of the wife the matter is simpler yet. She
will run away. A woman is never blamed for deserting her
husband, on the presumption that such unnatural procedure
could alone be due to the fact that she had been not only
ill-treated but grossly ill-treated by him. For an indepen-
dent woman is unknown among the Indians : if she is not
under the protection of some man she is left in the lurch,
and if she does not speedily find a protector must very
surely die. Moreover it is obvious that when a woman
runs away she must leave her children, and only gross
cruelty will drive her to that.

If, on the other hand, a man divorce his wife, that is to
say if he drives her away from him and so forces her out of
the household, he lays himself open to severe tribal censure
should the consensus of opinion be that no good cause has
been shown. If upon inquiry he fails to establish a satis-
factory excuse, he promptly is held up to ridicule by his
fellows ; he is the butt of all the women ; and he will
certainly find it a most difficult thing to remarry, for no
woman will ever consent to be his wife. In fact, tribal
censure results in the practical banishment of the offender,
for his life in the tribal family will be made unendurable
till such time as his offence be forgotten. The end of
this persecution, and his return to tribal rights and privi-
leges, depends entirely on his ability to prove and persuade
his fellows that after all he was not the one to be blamed.

When a woman quarrels with her man, or wishes to
revenge any wrong she may have suffered at his hands,
real or imaginary, she will dart at the loin-cloth of the
offender in the presence of the tribe and attempt to tear it
away so as to expose him to his fellows. No insult could
be greater, for this is the worst disgrace that can happen to
a man. Should this occur, the victim must run into the
forest and hide himself ; nor can he return until he has
beaten out a new bark loin-cloth to replace the one that was

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 167

torn, and so, once more decently attired, he may come back
and apologise to the tribe. The pair will then go off together
into the bush, and, according to circumstances, the wrong-
doer undergoes, or perhaps they mutually undergo, a very
painful penance. The wronged one takes one or more of
the big black stinging ants, and places them on the most
sensitive and private parts of the other's body. The sting
of the virulent insects not only gives intense pain, but
results in fever within twenty-four hours, and there is
much swelling of the parts affected.^ This is the recognised
mode of punishment after any conjugal infidelity, or any
ordinary separation ; and, repentance thus very practically
expressed by submission to torture, forgiveness follows and
good relations are again restored.

When a man dies the top ligatures of his widow are
cut as a sign of mourning, and are only replaced if she
marries again. There is no prohibition against remarriage,
though this is not permitted till some months after the
husband's death. As a rule, on a man's death his widow
continues to live with his people, either under the pro-
tection of the chief, or under that of her dead husband's
brother. If her own people are not hostile to the tribe into
which she married she may return to them, but the proba-
bility is that the tribes will have drifted apart, even if
they have not become enemies. Very frequently widows
become the tribal prostitutes, a custom that is not recog-
nised, but is tolerated, and is never practised openly or
immodestly.2

^ These are, I believe, the same ants that are used in the manufacture
of the curare poison. They are fairly common. In lingoa-geral they are
called tucaudera.

2 " The Carayas maintain quasi-husbands for widows at the public cost,
lest they should be a source of disturbance to the general peace" (Ratzel, ii.
126). Widows are repi, prostitutes among some Melanesians (Codrington,
P- 235)-

CHAPTER XIII

Sickness — Death by poison — Infectious diseases — Cruel treatment of sick
and aged — Homicide — Retaliation for murder — Tribal and personal
quarrels — Diseases — Remedies — Death — Mourning — Burial.

Indians, like most coloured races, are abject cowards in
pain or disease. They will bear torture stoically enough
when deliberately inflicted, but should they suffer from any,
to them, mysterious reason, in their ignorance of natural
causes they at once ascribe their affliction to witchcraft.
To this possibly may be due the hapless manner in which
they will lay them down to die, and actually succeed in doing
so by auto-suggestion.

To the Indian in common with other peoples of the lower
cultures, moreover, there is no such thing as death from
natural causes. It is the result either of poison administered
in secret by an enemy, or magical evil wrought by him or at
his instigation, and the crashing of the thunder is the magic
noise that accompanies the fatal result. If a possible enemy
is known or suspected, or if, after divination, the medicine-
man can identify the culprit, it becomes the duty of the
relatives to avenge the deceased, who has, according to Indian
logic, been murdered.^

Without doubt a very large number of deaths are due to
poison. Removal by poison is practised to a great extent
by the Karahone, who have, as has been said, much scien-
tific knowledge of poisons and their effects. Further, it is
the custom of the tribal medicine-man when his patients are
in what he considers to be a hopeless condition, to administer
a dose of poison quietly to the moribund sufferers after he

^ See, for similar belief among the Zaparo, Simson, p. 174,
168

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 169

has declared that all his skill is in vain, and announced
that recovery is impossible. For the medicine-man it then
becomes more important to secure the fulfilment of his
verdict than to risk the chance of recovery falsifying his
prognostications. The probability is that the patient
would die, if for no other reason than that the medicine-man
foretold his death, but that gentleman will take no risks.^

There are other and more recognised cases in which it
is the medicine-man's province to administer a fatal draught.
A mad person, for example, is first exorcised by the medi-
cine-man to expel his madness. If this fails to secure
the eviction of the evil spirits that cause the madness,
the man is put to death to ensure the destruction of the
bad influence which, since it passes the doctor's power
to remedy, has presumably been sent by some hostile col-
league with greater magical gifts. Occasionally also, when
any serious accident has befallen an Indian, a medicine-man
goes through the ceremony of placing him in a secluded
part of the bush, and administering the usual narcotic.
The patient is then left for the night. The next day his
relatives return, and if he is not dead he recounts to them
his dreams, and from these they deduct who is the enemy
that has caused his sickness. Reprisals naturally follow.

Should any known infectious disease break out in a tribe,
those attacked by it are immediately left, even by their
closest relatives, the house is abandoned, and possibly even
burnt. Such derelict houses are no uncommon sight in the
forest, grimly desolate mementos of possible tragedies.

Perhaps the cruel treatment of the sick arises from the
fact that all disease is regarded as due to an enemy who
essays by such means to procure the destruction of the
tribe. Fear is undoubtedly the root-cause. But it must
also be remembered that where life is not easy for the hale
and hearty, for the helpless it is impossible except in so far
as they can prey upon their active neighbours. The ques-

^ For example, among the Bororo when the medicine-man has
announced that the patient will die in a given time, " if at the end of this
time he still lives, the executioner, sent of course by the priest, will suddenly
appear in the hut, sit astride his stomach, and strangle him to death "
(Cook, p. 55).

170 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

tion of self-preservation comes in to complicate the problem
of the unfit. At every point it is clearly to be seen that the
survival of the most fit is the very real and the very stern
rule of life in the Amazonian forests. From birth to death
it rules the Indians' life and philosophy. To help to pre-
serve the unfit would often be to prejudice the chances of
the fit.^ There are no arm-chair sentimentalists to oppose
this very practical consideration. The Indian judges it by
his standard of common sense : why live a life that has
ceased to be worth living when there is no bugbear of a hell
to make one cling to the most miserable of existences rather
than risk greater misery ? Moreover, in Indian opinion,
such clinging to life is a very arrant selfishness.

Certainly cases of chronic illness meet with no sympathy
from the Indians. A man who cannot hunt or fight is re-
garded as useless, he is merely a burden on the community.
Should he show no signs of eventual recovery, his friends
unhesitatingly leave him to die, or, if a medicine-man has
not been commissioned to put him out of the way, he is
driven into the bush, where the same end is speedily
attained. This is done not only to the invalids, but also
to the aged members of a tribe, unless they possess great
wisdom and experience, and so are of great tribal worth.
Otherwise they, too, have ceased to be units of any practical
value in tribal life, and merely hamper the more active.
Actual parricide there is none ; old people are not killed, but
they are left to die. There is no sentimental desire for their
company, no affection to lighten the unhappiness of their
lot. If they are unable to tend themselves, not an Indian
will go out of his way to render any help or service. Cas-
sava may be thrown to them occasionally, or it may be
forgotten, and without doubt in times of scarcity no pro-
vision whatever is made for the feeble and the failing
who can make none for themselves. Slaves, of course,
are looked upon as of no account, and if sick or crippled
they are abandoned without a thought. If a woman
with a young child should die, and no one be found willing
to adopt the infant, the father argues that it must die

* See Joyce, p. 249.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 171

anyhow, and it is either quietly killed and buried with the
dead mother, or exposed in the bush.^

The reason that underlies such neglect of the sick and
infirm has, on the other hand, resulted in the prevention of
intra-tribal homicide. If the survival of the unfit is not to
be desired, the existence of the fit is to be encouraged by
all possible means. On the whole, although sick people are
neglected, I do not think that they are often destroyed.
Frequently a sick Indian has appealed to me, " Oh ! let me
die," but none has ever said, " Kill me ! " Intra-tribal
homicide is certainly prohibited by custom, otherwise homi-
cide is only limited by fear of reprisal, a more effective
combination than any police force or criminal code. Even
as punishment for an admitted offence, homicide within
the tribe is not tolerated, for if a man die it means the
loss of a warrior, an injury to tribal strength, a matter not
to be lightly risked where the battle is only to the strong.
There is, however, one exception to this, and that is in the
case of theft. Living as these peoples do an absolutely
public life, theft becomes of necessity a capital crime. The
loser, if he can catch the thief, will kill him by knocking him
down by a blow on the legs with the iron-wood sword, and
then hacking off his head. This retribution is considered
perfectly justifiable by the tribe, and is indeed sanctioned
by custom.

After a murder has been committed it is the sacred duty
of some brother or near relative of the dead to kill the
murderer, or, if not, at least a relative of his, in accordance
with the world-old idea of an eye for an eye. A man who
refused to revenge a murdered relative would be taunted by
all the women, and this would soon render his own life in
the tribe an intolerable one. But I have never come across
the custom which is prevalent in Africa among some primi-
tive peoples, that is, to search for the same relative to the
murdered as the murdered man was to the avenger : for
example, " You have killed my nephew, I will kill your
nephew."

When an intentional murder has been committed the

* See supra, p. 151.

172 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

murderer flies to the bush, where he is promptly followed,
and the pursuit is not foregone until the criminal is secured
or the pursuers find themselves in imminent danger from
a hostile tribe. In the latter case the blood-feud remains
open for an early settlement, and the friends of the murderer
are dealt with first.

Homicide is, in fact, always looked upon as a wrong done
to a man's tribe or family, rather than to the individual
himself. In the case of accidental homicide it may still
lead to a blood-feud. The deed is done, that is sufficient for
these simple-minded folk. It may possibly be put down to
the witchcraft of some neighbouring medicine -man who
has bewitched the unintentional slayer with hostile motives ;
but that will not save the unfortunate offender, rather is it
an additional argument that he should be destroyed lest
worse trouble follow. There is also to be reckoned with
the idea that the dead man's spirit will haunt the tribe,
and especially his nearest relative, until his blood has been
avenged.^ Besides, it is undoubtedly difficult to draw the
line between accident and design, and, for the matter of that,
the meaning of the word " accident " is unknown to the
Indian.

The chief and the tribe will sometimes take up the
quarrel as their own, but, on the other hand, a man con-
siders it a disgraceful thing not to be able to avenge his
own wrongs, and, therefore, never applies to the chief
for tribal help. This is true of all small communities, an
affront of any one of the community being a personal attack
upon every other member, but it is not necessary that it
should be avenged by all, unless the affronted one be unable
for any cause to complete his revenge by himself.

No tribal notice is taken of a murder committed intra-
family, such as the murder of a son or a wife, as no
revenge is necessary ; the loss only affects the murderers,
and it is simply arranged by the family itself. The loss of
one member does not suggest itself as a reasonable cause

^ The idea of blood crying for vengeance is familiar enough, and the
most universally-known example is that of the fratricide Cain informed
that his brother's blood cried for vengeance from the ground (Gen. iv. lo).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 173

for compelling the loss of another. The one exception to
this would be if the murdered man were a noted warrior
whose death would constitute a serious tribal loss. Action
might then be taken by the whole tribe after the usual
tobacco palaver.

So much for death by violence ; there remains something
to be said of death by disease, and of sickness not neces-
sarily ending in death.

All travellers and writers have noticed how prone the
Indian is to sun-sickness. Living as he does in the perpetual
gloom of his tribal house, or the restricted light of the forest
depths, he appears to be exceptionally susceptible to the
efEects of strong sunshine. His sensitiveness is tried further
by any sort of change, even a transference from the upper
reaches to the main rivers completely upsets him. Indians
appear to go sick especially on moving only a short way
from their own locality. They are also bad subjects
for malarial fevers, and the Issa River is notoriously un-
healthy in this respect. By this I mean the river itself,
and in its immediate vicinage. Even a few hundred yards
away from its banks the country is comparatively healthy
and free from pestilent fly-belts, which, it will be remembered,
are at their worst some three days steam up that river.^
On the Brazilian frontier especially the pium from sunrise
to sunset is unbearable. The beginning of the rains in-
variably brings fever.

On the other hand, chest complaints are rare, respiratory
disease is unknown, and throat diseases uncommon, though
you meet victims to rheumatism and cramp. There is no
venereal disease among these tribes, and no umbilical hernia.
Phimosis is common, and so are gastric complaints. Dis-
eases of the eye are rare, though squinting is extremely
prevalent.

There are many parasitic diseases. Ringworm and
intestinal worm are very general troubles, and lice in the
head universal. Jiggers in the Indian houses are a pest to
all, and one of the daily duties of the Indian wife consists
in the examination of her man's feet to remove any thorns

1 See supra, p. 31.

174 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

or jiggers that may have effected a lodgment. This jigger
is similar to the African species ; it burrows into the foot,
and lays its eggs beneath the skin. I have had as many as
thirty-seven picked out of my foot at one time. The nuisance
can be largely diminished if the traveller take the precaution
always to wear boots in or about an Indian house, for jiggers
are not found in the bush itself, though a somewhat similar
pest abounds on the leaves and grasses,^ and causes abomin-
able irritation. In the Rubber Belt the usual remedy for
this is a bath of white rum.

Near the Rubber Belt smallpox has found its devastating
way among the Indians. I have said that they fear any
contagious disease, and will often leave a sick person to die,
so it may well be understood that a case of smallpox causes
the utmost panic and consternation.^ Tribes further re-
moved from contact with " civilisation " are spared this
scourge, but I noticed a form of measles among the children.
Yellow fever is not known in the upper reaches, but I can
answer for it that beriberi is, as I fell a victim to it myself.
It is very prevalent in all this country, but it does not attack
the Indians. 3

The Napo Indians suffer from skin diseases that are not
known to the tribes in the Issa and Japura valleys. There
is a bluish discoloration and white blotch that is said to
come from eating tapir.* Among the Karahone one meets

^ " A microscopic scarlet Acarus " (Orton, p. 485).

2 " To an Indian smallpox is certain death — the most dreaded enemy,
who has over and over again swept off entire tribes, and the name or
passing suspicion of which from youth up has always been trembled at and
fled from as from death itself " (Simson, p. 142),

3 There are many varieties of this complaint. In one kind the patient
wastes away. With another it assumes the characteristics of elephantiasis,
the legs swell, the flesh becomes soft and podgy, the skin unhealthy and
white. It is said by the rubber-gatherers that a cure can only be effected
when the patient sees the sea, in other words through complete change
of air.

* Simson speaks of a " skin-disease common amongst all Indians of the
higher Maraiion, called ' carata.' The skin is ' scaly and blotched all over
with black ' " (Simson, p. 178). This seems to be similar to the " cutaneous
disease " mentioned by Bates, except that he explicitly mentions " the
black spots were hard and rough but not scaly" (Bates, ii. 382). The
Purupura Indians have also a skin complaint that causes them to be
" spotted and blotched with white, brown, or nearly black patches "
(Wallace, p. 357).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 175

with cases afflicted in the same manner as natives on the
Apaporis. They are spotted with a leprosy which is said
to be due to the amount of fish that is eaten by these tribes.
This disease is otherwise unknown.

All strangers suffer from ulcers on the legs.^ Among the
Indians themselves sores are common, ^ but I think are due
entirely to neglected wounds caused by palm-spines and so
forth, not to climate and feeding as would be the case with
ourselves. Stings also have to be reckoned with.

Indian remedies are rather symptomatic than specific ; ^
the methods of cure will be more fully dealt with in connec-
tion with the medicine-men. The remedies are rather of
the order of kill than cure. For instance, fever is treated
by the drastic method of bathing in the cold water of the
river to lower the temperature.* On the Napo the natives
take a concoction of tobacco - water and quinine. They
make a remedy for wounds from the bark of a tree, which
they boil, and use the liquid to wash the wound. A root
found in the forest yields a narcotic much employed by the
medicine-man when it is scraped, crushed, and boiled in
water. Another remedy, acting as a counter-irritant, is a
sage-green feathery moss, some species of lichen, very dry,
that grows round the roots of trees.

During my stay with the tribes I never met with any such
frantic sorrow at a death as is described by Koch-Grunberg,^
though a mother will cry over the body of a dead child,® and
sobbing, wailing, and a certain amount of excited grief is
shown at a funeral, especially if it be that of an important
person.

Burial takes place without delay on the day of death.
The dead man, unwashed, is wrapped in his hammock in a
sitting position, and a grave is dug immediately below the
place where the hammock was slung in his lifetime. Though

^ I did myself, and so did my boy Brown and others of the party,
' Andre, pp. 16-110.
' Spix and Martius, p. 31.

* Simson, pp. 148, 194. A very common practice among Indians.
" Koch-Griinberg, pp. 134, 165.

" I do not mean the body of an infant killed at birth, which, as I have
said, is done as quietly and secretly as possible.

176 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

they only dig deep enough to hide the body, this custom of
intramural interment does not appear to have unhealthy
effects upon the other inhabitants of the house, and no
epidemic ever seems to arise in consequence. The dead man's
ornaments, his arms, and other personal possessions, such as
his tobacco-bag, his coca-pot, are placed in the leaf-lined
grave beside him. The whole interment is carried out with
all speed, to get the body out of the way as quickly as they
possibly can. South of the Issa a canoe or earthen jar takes
the place of the hammock for shroud, but I never met with
any urn burial, primary or secondary, among the tribes of
the north.i

When the deceased is a woman the same procedure is
followed, only pots are buried with her in place of weapons.
Among the Kuretu-language group, when a woman dies, her
pots are broken before they are placed in the grave, ^ and her
baskets are also buried with her in addition to her ornaments.
This is done to prevent the return of the soul to ask for its
properties should they be needed in the spirit world.

When a chief has died the ceremonies are more elaborate.
His body, like any other man's, is wrapped in his palm-fibre
hammock, and he is buried with his weapons, ornaments,
and private treasures. But after the grave is filled in, the
assembled tribe partake of a funeral feast. In the intervals
of drinking and dancing the mourners sing of the great
achievements, the worthiness and virtues of the dead man.
The new chief comes forward, attired in the prescribed
fashion, wearing a weird and wonderful head-dress to attract
attention. He does not face the assembled people, but turns
to the wall of the house, and speaks with his back to the
tribe.

After a burial a fire is made over the new grave by the
relatives, and is always kept burning for some days, except

1 " Primary urn-burial is characteristic in the main of the Tupi-Guarani
family " (Joyce, p. 270).

2 For the same reason that prompted similar proceeding among the
Norsemen, an influence still alive in many parts of our own country.
Cf. Mitchell, Past in the Present. An instance is reported from Hamp-
shire within the last few years of a child's toys being broken on its grave.
(Read, Folklore Journal, vol. xxii. p. 322.)

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 177

in the case of a chief, when the whole house is burnt. This
may possibly counteract the obvious dangers of these intra-
mural burials, and account for the absence of evil results.

Whatever mourning may be indulged in before the body
is buried, no grief is ever shown after the interment, for the
spirit has then departed. This belief explains why a man's
grave is not marked in any way by these tribes, and has, as
a matter of course, no claim to respect from his survivors.

It is possible that the question of cannibal customs as
insults to the dead also influence the Indians in the matter
of burial, and the absence of sign upon a grave. It would
in some measure account for the burial in the house — as a
protective measure — in spite of the fact that they recognise
the danger of the spirit's return, a belief which would more
naturally incline them to extramural burials.

Ceremonial bathing always takes place after a funeral,
in which every one takes part for the purpose of purification.

CHAPTER XIV

The medicine-man, a shaman — Remedies and cures — Powers and duties
of the medicine-man — Virtue of breath — Ceremonial heaUng —
Hereditary office — Training — Medicine-man and tigers — Magic work-
ing— Properties — Evil always due to bad magic — Influence of medicine-
man— Method of magic-working — Magical cures.

The medicine-man of the South American Indian tribes has
been described as " the counterpart of the shaman type." ^
There ^yould seem to be hardly need for any quahfication —
he is a shaman. The word has attained a certain vogue,
with too frequent lax usage, so that merely finding the
name ** shimano " in connection with any of these Indians —
especially when it is found in the pages of an American
writer — does not warrant this assertion. 2 But a short
study of the exhaustive paper on Shamanism and the
Shaman in the Royal Anthropological Institute Journal ^ will
show that point for point the methods and procedure of the
Witoto, the Boro, and kindred tribes tally with that of the
shamans of Siberian peoples. That is to say he is a doctor
and a wizard, not a priest. He claims to deal with spirits
by magical processes, to exorcise, outwit, and circumvent,
not to officiate in any sacred office as the minister, the vicar,
of a deity. He is a hypnotist and a conjuror. But he is
more than a mere charlatan. He is the poison-maker for
the tribe, and possesses, as a rule, especially among the
Andoke and Karahone, a considerable knowledge of drugs,

^ Ratzel, ii. 155.

^ Shaman is in more general use among Americans. It should be
remembered that the Zaparo, with whom Simson mentions the shimano
(Simson, pp. 174-5, 177), have had considerably more intercourse with
western civilisation than the tribes away from the Napo line of com-
munication.

^ Vol. xxiv.

178

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 179

both curative and lethal. The curare poison is a treasured
secret of the medicine-men. Its recipe is religiously guarded
by them, and the deadly preparation is made with both
ceremony and privacy. The Andoke medicine-men have
an ointment concocted from a plant — the identity of which
they would not divulge — ^that is used for massaging purposes.
They all use tobacco juice, coca, and a white snuff that I
thought must be the famous niopo, but could not find out
anything about it.^ One cure for a headache is worked with
a special kind of dried bark. The medicine-man carries a
piece of this in his magic-bag, and with it he rubs over the
head of the sufferer ; or, if he is dealing with a wound, he
will pass the bark over the skin to make it heal. There is
also a species of lichen or moss used by them to rub lightly
over the affected part, which acts as a very mild blistering
agent. It stings and, acting as a counter irritant, draws the
inflammation away from the seat of the injury to the surface,
and thus to some extent neutralises the pain. It is a sage
green in colour, dry and feathery in appearance, and is
found growing round the roots of trees.

Pain, sickness, death, each and all are caused in Indian
opinion by some evil spirit, sent of course by an enemy.
It is to combat this magic- worked mischief that the medicine-
man's services are required in the first place. Magic must
be countered by magic. ^ Incidentally the medicine-man
relies also to some extent on his own medicine, his purges,
and narcotics. However potent these may, or may not be,
the fact that the patient has implicit faith in their efficacy
goes far to assist their intrinsic merits and further the cure,
the expulsion of the evil spirit that has wrought the trouble.
A medicine -man probably has a number of these more
or less genuine remedies, infusions of herbs that possess
curative properties, such as those already dealt with in the
previous chapter.

But drugs and ointments alone do not, to the Indian
mind, go far to bring about recovery. Much more effective,

* " The chief * medicine ' of the Payes on the affluents of the Amazon,
both northern and southern, and on the Orinoco " (Spruce, ii. 436).

* Crevaux, p. 300.

i8o THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

as a spirit-evicting agent, is the medicine-man's virtue,
represented by his breath. It is sufficient for him to breathe
over food or drink to render it healthy, to breathe on a sore
place to secure removal of pain, to breathe on the sick to
promote recovery.^ Nor is this power vested only in the
medicine-man. Other people's breath may have similar
value, if of less degree.^ Should an Indian wish to eat of
forbidden food, he may get an old woman to breathe over
it. Is a child sickly, a Hke procedure may restore it to
health. In all the medicine-man's performances breathing
and blowing over the patient is a prominent part of the
processes. The medicine-man will breathe on his own hand
and then massage the part of the patient that is affected ;
and if stronger measures are required he will suck the place,
or as near the place as his mouth can be put, suck vigorously
and possibly spit out a black liquid — the tobacco juice
freely taken by him during the performance explains the
colour. The avowed object of the suction is that it draws
out the poison — the evil spirit .^ It is here that some degree
of charlatanism comes into play, for the operating medicine-
man will presently produce a tangible object from his mouth,
a bit of stick, a thorn, a fishbone, or anything of a similar
description, and inform the patient and his friends that this
is the material form which had been assumed by the evil
spirit which he has drawn bodily from the flesh of the sick
person.* This is the usual accompaniment of the shaman's
rites, and too universally indulged in by the wizard fraternity
to need any particular comment.

The Indian medicine-man receives presents for the cures
he effects. Should he fail he must make the best case he can

^ im Thurn, p. 312 ; Wallace, p. 347 ; Crevaux, p. 299.

2 im Thurn, p. 368.

^ Spruce mentions Barr6 Indians " sucking out the rheumatism " from
each other's shoulders (Spruce, ii. 435).

* I am unable to say whether the medicine-man believes that an actual
stick has been literally in the patient's flesh, or whether he believes that the
stick concealed in his mouth becomes a habitation for the supernatural
power causing the sickness, or if he merely does the whole thing to impress
his audience, and confirm their belief in his magical powers. Quite possibly
all these reasons combined in varying degrees are present in any case.
See Marett, Anthropology, p. 247.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS i8i

for himself, and depart to the bush to work magic against
the rival who has successfully — according to his account —
outmanoeuvred him. The blame for failure is not to be his
but another's. This, it is hardly necessary to note, is an
alluring chance for the repayment of any personal injury or
slight, not often missed by so entirely human a person as the
Indian medicine-man.

To a certain extent the office of tribal medicine-man
is hereditary, that is to say the eldest son, if efficient,
succeeds the father. It would be more correct to say the
most hairy of his sons, as hirsute qualifications are far more
weighty and essential determinatives than questions of primo-
geniture. The hairier the wiser it would seem. But of this
anon. Often the medicine-man will have a small boy with
him, who may be his son, actual or adopted, and who is
also credited with magic gifts. ^ Thus the secrets of the
profession are preserved from generation to generation, the
chosen youths being the recipients of the secrets and trained
to develop and carry on the magic of their predecessors.
Part of the ritual of initiation, as of the ceremonial healing,
consists of what to the unbelieving white man is not too well
done conjuring. The medicine-man is a clumsy conjuror,
and only the implicit trust of his patients and audience saves
him from frequent detection. But the behef that they must
see what he declares they see goes far to make them in very
truth behold it. The ** conjuring " in the initiation of a
novice consists of simple " passes " of sticks up through the
nostril and out of the back of the head. According to
Waterton the probationers have to endure exhausting
ordeals and torture. ^ This is very probable, but on this
point I received no information.

So far as I am aware not one of these tribes attaches any
importance to the hair that is chpped or depilated, nor to
nail parings ; if they do the point escaped me. But though
they depilate because they dislike resembling monkeys with a
hairy pelt, at the same time it is noticeable that not only

^ A boy " with epileptic tendency being preferred," as im Thurn noted
was the case in British Guiana (im Thurn, p. 334).
* Waterton, p. 449,

i82 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS i

does the medicine-man ignore this general custom, especially
among the Andoke where it is strictly tabu to him — yet
hairiness is, as I have stated above, a necessary qualification
for any man or youth who is desirous of attaining the posi-
tion of medicine-man. He is certainly the only man in the
tribe with any face hair. When the medicine-man has a
hairy son the boy is trained to inherit the *' practice,'*
but should he have no offspring with this distinctive require-
ment, a hairy child will be chosen and educated for the post.

There may possibly be some connection between this tabu
and the belief that when a medicine-man dies he returns as
a tiger, and even during his lifetime he can make excursions
in tiger-form, and be so absolutely tiger that he can slay
and eat the beasts of the wild. Every medicine-man
possesses a jaguar skin that he is said to use when he turns
tiger. By possession of a skin he has the power of resusci-
tating the tiger, he himself being the spirit of the tiger.
He can thus work his will, afterwards returning to human
form. An ordinary tiger might be killed, but a medicine-
man in tiger form could not be.^ On one occasion a medicine-
man I met had a bag made of tiger-skin hung round his neck,
in which he carried all his paraphernalia. But the medicine-
men never wear these skins as wraps or coverings. Each
hides his tiger skin away, when not in actual use for magic
purposes.

The power to return after death in the shape of the
dreaded jaguar is a further defensive measure, a precaution
against hostile peoples, as in this shape both before and after
death the medicine-man can attack the tribal enemies, and
carry obnoxious individuals away into the bush whenever
opportunity offers.

The medicine-man lives with, and yet aloof from his
fellow-tribesmen. He has to observe many tabu, certain
kinds of food are prohibited, and he must have no connec-
tion with women when making his medicines,^ for should
the woman bear a child it will be a tiger cub. To make
his drugs and unguents a medicine-man goes alone into the
forest, and this in itself marks him as different from other

1 Cf. im Thiirn, p. 349. ^ Cf. Westermarck, p. 152.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 183

men, who will never of their own free will go far without a
companion. Spruce mentions an armed guard attendant on
medicine-men, " their lives being in continual jeopardy,"
but no such thing is known south of the Japura.^ The
medicine-mxcn certainly wander in the bush alone, for they
will disappear at times, and on their return inform the
tribesfolk that they have been about some magical journey-
ings ; they may have worked in the guise of tigers against
tribal enemies ; or paid visits in the spirit to other lands.
No armed escort could protect a medicine-man better than
his own reputation suffices to do, for all medicine-men are
feared — certes one that was not feared would not be worth
the killing — and no Indian would be likely to risk the danger
resultant on doing one an injury. I doubt if even a hostile
tribe would wittingly put a medicine-man to death, for
they fear retaliation on the part of the spirit, which would
certainly haunt them, even if it worked no graver ill.

The medicine - man's dress, as already mentioned, is
largely a matter of personal taste ; something original and
striking is usually attempted. The Orahone medicine-man
clothes himself in tapir-skin, and the Andoke medicine-
man in the illustration opposite p. 73 was wearing a dyed
turban when I took his portrait. Any fancy article that
comes to hand is utilised to make him different from
his fellows. His " properties," which are carried in an
ornamented bag of tiger skin, or of beaten bark sewn with
fibre string, consist of a rattle — of rather more elaborate
design than the ordinary dance rattle — some small magic
stones, and a cup made from the shell of a river fish.^ The
latter resembles a large oyster, and the mother-of-pearl
inner coating is much used for earrings and ornaments.
The medicine-man takes this cup, speaks into it, and rubs
the sick person all over with it. Then, if this does not bring
about a cure, the patient must suck it till he vomits, and
continue to vomit till the evil spirit be expelled.

Condor claws play a great part in magic- working among

^ Spruce, ii. 430-31.

2 I have never seen the medicine-man's palm-leaf boxes mentioned by
Spruce, ii. 431.

i84 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS ^

the northern tribes. These gigantic birds are rare in the •*
bush, and I never saw one, though I heard of them from
all the medicine-men, and obtained some specimens of the
dried feet from them. These are ugly objects, the leg
stump stopped with pitch and bound roughly round with
bands of beaten bark, about half or a quarter of an inch
wide, and not twisted. But though I got the claws I could
not get any details as to what they were supposed to do.^

I once saw a medicine-man with the skin of an anaconda,
and was told that by using the skin he could control the
spirit of the anaconda.^ For this purpose the medicine-
men are habitually provided with the dried skins of lizards
and snakes.^

The Andoke place great faith in strings of magical stones,
five or seven in number. These are taken off the string
and laid by the medicine-man in certain patterns on the
sufferer. The medicine-man gazes at them abstractedly
till a degree of self -induced trance is established. He will
then break out into a frenzy, stamp, shout, and brandish
his rattle. The stones are also used for magical rubbing,
and are most assiduously guarded by their possessors, who
will not part with them for any consideration. The only
string of such stones I managed even to see are shown in
the illustration. They are of quartz, somewhat roughly
made flat discs, worn smooth by continual use, about three-
quarters of an inch in diameter and a quarter of an inch
thick, bored in the centre, the hole being half the size in the
middle to what it is at its external radius. These stones
are always carried on a string.

Whatever goes wrong in tribal life, from, a pain in the

^ Among the Mungaberra the medicine-men " can and often do assume
the form of eagle-hawks," and thus attack other tribes (Spencer and
Gillen, p. 533). It may be that the medicine-men of Indian tribes nearer the
mountains, where these birds have their habitat, assume the form of a
condor, as the medicine-man of the forest districts does that of the jaguar,
for the condor is " sacred throughout practically the whole of the Andean
region." See Joyce, p. 175.

2 The jaguar and the anaconda are both magical beasts. See
Chap. XIX.

2 Note : Among the Arunta the medicine-man has " a particular kind
of lizard distributed through his body, which endows him with great
suctional powers " (Spencer and Gillen, p. 531).

PLATE XLI.

STONE AXE HEAD ^BORO

STRING OF MAGIC STONES (ANDOKE)

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 185

finger to a hurricane, the maHce of an enemy working
through the evil spirits is held to be responsible, as will
be shown more fully hereafter. It is the medicine-man's
business not only to frustrate their malicious purposes, but
also to discover who is the foe inciting their wickedness by
magical influences. Mischief can be wrought without any
bodily presence.^ Revenge is also possible by the exercise
of similar extra-natural powers. For instance, if a child
is lost, or killed by a tiger, the bereaved parents call
the tribal medicine-man to their assistance. If the hunters
sent out to retaliate upon the tiger-foe fail to capture or
overcome it, the medicine-man proceeds to work magic.
This may be quite simple, for it is possible that in his soHtary
wanderings in the bush he may have the luck to come across
the lost youngster. In this case he "re-creates" the
child by the potency of his magic-working, and secures an
unshakable reputation by producing it alive in due course.
Should such luck not befall him he can but return with a
tale of vengeance wreaked on the tiger, and a tiger-tooth —
not necessarily of fresh extraction — in proof of that same.
Then it is his duty to discover which might be the wicked
tribe that sent the tiger, or had it sent at their instigation,
as he would have to ascertain who had sent sickness were
it the death of an adult that was under investigation.
The procedure is the same whether the trouble be a
house blown down by the wind or any other catastrophe.
The tribe assembles for a solemn palaver, and the medicine-
man, frenzied with drugs, eventually ** divines " who is the
enemy. The final decision usually is that the tribe had
better go to war at once lest worse befall them.

The medicine-man invariably has a considerable say
in intertribal policy. War is never made without his
advice, and in addition to his duties as tribal avenger and
healer, he must warn the tribe of impending hostilities. ^
Should hostilities break out, or a death occur, during a
white man's visit to a tribe, he would possibly find himself

^ See im Thurn, pp. 329-31.

^ Spruce, ii. 432. Cf. Rochfort, Histoire naturelle et morale des Isles
Antilles, p. 472.

i86 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

in considerable personal danger. Success to the tribe might
in part be attributed to his virtue, but disaster would
certainly be considered due to his malign presence, a point
the medicine -man would not be slow in urging against
the visitor.

The white stranger, with his foreign magic — for magic
every other thing he possesses must seem to the un-
sophisticated child of the bush — in any circumstances is
regarded with some jealousy by the professional magic-
workers of the tribes. Naturally, therefore, it is with
extreme difficulty that any details of their methods and
doings can be learnt. It goes without saying that the
medicine - man regards any inquisitive stranger as a
potential rival, is on his guard against bluff or bribery,
and never willingly gives so much as an opening for
exchange of professional confidences. It is the hardest
thing in the world to obtain information from the Indian,
for every Indian will say '* I don't know," or '* Pia " —
because it is so — ^in order to avoid having to explain his
beliefs to the white man. I tried to bluff, and by feigning to
possess magical gifts hoped to draw the local exponent into
a rival display, but with no encouraging results. What I
could gather had to be done with circumspection, a bit
here, a trifle there, a note from a chance remark, a comment
from another.

The expulsion of the evil spirit causing sickness is a
matter requiring invariably much noise and fury. The
maloka is always dark, be it day or night, and the gloom
is not broken by torches for the medicine - man's visit,
nor are the smouldering fires kicked into a blaze. The
doctor, well under the influence of drugs, works himself
to a state of wild exaltation. He beats the floor with a
palm branch, shakes his rattle vigorously, and makes the
most appalling noises. He will imitate the beasts and birds
of the forest, and — as he must be a skilled ventriloquist if
he has any claims whatsoever to magic gifts — the sounds
apparently come from every side. This is to demonstrate
the embodying of the spirits of the nether world, the active
causation of all ill. Also it is to summon to his assistance

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 187

all friendly spirits, or all over whom he has attained magical
influence. He carries on conversations with the assumed
speakers, and intermittently howls, and shrieks, and beats
the air with his palm branches. The greater the noise, the
wilder the excitement, the more potent is the magic of the
medicine-man. South of the Japura he does not blow
smoke over the patient, but he makes use of both tobacco
juice and coca. He further drugs himself most probably
with some such powerful agent as aya-huasca, though that
is not supposed to be known to these tribes. The medicine-
man also doses himself with a drink made from a certain
liana. When thoroughly intoxicated with it he will run
away, and shortly go into profound slumber. In this
comatose state he is supposed to hold intercourse with the
unseen world, to wander in spirit to other places, and, as a
result of what he has hereby learnt, to be able to foretell
the future when he awakes.

Magic-making in cases of sickness includes the blowing,
sucking, and so forth, already described. The relatives of
the patient will discourse at length on the story of the
sickness, and the medicine-man will either announce who
sent it himself or expound the sick person's dreams and
therefrom deduct the source of evil. The official explana-
tion and verdict is always given in the most ambiguous
phraseology, so that whatever happens the medicine-man
may be able to twist his dictum to the desired equivalent
of " I told you so."

As already described the invalid may be given a strong
narcotic drink, the decoction of a root, and carried out
to a small clearing made in the bush. There he is left
under a rough shelter. No one may speak to him, or pass
him while he lies there, otherwise he will die. The relations
go out of sight, and guard the bush tracks, to prevent
any such passage. If the patient die the medicine-man
asserts very positively that some one has transgressed,
knowingly or unknowingly, and so caused the fatal ending.
I saw such a case on one occasion and was prayed by the
Indians not to go anywhere in the direction of the sick man.

Should a man's wife fall ill her relatives may, if they

i88 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

are within reasonable distance, come and take her away.l
Koch-Griinberg mentions a case among the Bara Indians!
where two men came from another tribe and removed their
sick sister. They were treated with a show of hostility and
followed — as the ailing woman took her healthy children
away — for some distance into the bush. But no tribal
quarrel ensued, the hostility appears to have been merely
ceremonial. This is typical of what might occur among
any friendly tribes.

Spruce, after seven months among the Uaupes Indians,
*' failed to catch a paye " ^ or see one at work. I attempted
to get on terms with sundry of these gentlemen by an
exhibition of my own " magic " powers, in the hope that I
might elicit some comments, or hints of their own secrets.
I made play with my eyeglass, and informed them that it
was great medicine, and enabled me to see through a man.
But though the tribesmen had on their own account
attributed this faculty to my camera, the medicine-men
were very sceptical of the eyeglass. Still I had better
fortune than Spruce, for one day when I was with an
Okaina tribe, a woman of my party went down with
fever. She had a temperature of 103° to 104°, and
the quinine with which I dosed her had no effect.
There happened to be a great and noted medicine-man
in the district, so they sent for him. The maloka, some
fifty yards from wall to wall each way, was dark as
pitch. Into the gloom rushed a frenzied figure. It was
the medicine-man in a state of tremendous excitement.
He passed his hands frantically all over the woman's body.
She lay rigid, and he was shaking with the intensity of his
emotion. Never in my life have I seen a man so excited.
If he were play-acting he believed most emphatically in his
own play-acting. Then he filled his mouth with coca, and
stooping over the moribund woman put his lips upon hers.
Eager and trembling, he sucked up the contents of the
woman's mouth, then rushed out of the house and ex-
pectorated, emptying his mouth with his fingers. After this
he annomiced that he had sucked away the evil spirit.

^ Spruce, ii 431.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 189

Next morning the woman was perfectly well.

I considered it the most extraordinary faith cure : but
there was no burking the fact that a dying woman had been
restored most miraculously to health. Certainly imagina-
tion goes very far in the curative process with a patient in
Amazonia — as elsewhere, — ^but even allowing for this it was
extraordinary.

Faith in the healing powers of the medicine-men is not
confined to the tribesmen, for I knew one case of an Indian
woman who had been married for years to a white man
and lived in the rubber district. She fell ill, and her husband,
instead of trusting to the white man's remedies, insisted on
sending for a medicine-man.

CHAPTER XV

Indian dances — Songs without meaning — Elaborate preparations — The
Chief's invitation — Numbers assembled — Dance step — Reasons for
dances — Special dances — Dance staves — Arrangement of dancers —
Method of airing a grievance — Plaintiff's song of complaint — The
tribal " black list " — Manioc-gathering dance and song — Muenane
Riddle Dance — A discomfited dancer — Indian riddles and mimicry —
Dance intoxication — An unusual incident — A favourite dance — The
cannibal dance — A mad festival of savagery — The strange fascination
of the Amazon.

Whatever of art there may be in the soul of the tribesman
finds expression in the dance. It is the concert and the
play, the opera, the ball, the carnival, and the feast of the
Amazons, in that it gives opportunity for the aesthetic,
artistic, dramatic, musical, and spectacular aspirations of
the Indian's nature. It is his one social entertainment, and
he invites to it every one living in amity with him. Any
excuse is enough for a dance, but nevertheless the affair is a
serious business. The dance, like the tobacco palaver, is
a dominant factor in tribal life. For it the Amazonian
treasures the songs of his fathers, and will master strange
rhymes and words that for him no longer have meaning ;
he only knows they are the correct lines, the phrases he
ought to sing at such functions, because they always have
been sung, they are the words of the time-honoured tribal
melodies.^ It is for these occasions that he fashions quaint

* That the words are now incomprehensible may have arisen from
the fact that the songs were originally intended only to recall things
to those already instructed, in the same way that Mexican picture records
" do not tell their stories in full, but only recall them to the minds of those
who are already acquainted with them " (E. B. Tylor, p. 96) . As instruction
and memory lapsed the words would become mere gibberish Certainly
all these tribes appear to have songs they can no longer interpret. La
danse est accompagnee des chantes ; je regrette de n' avoir pu saisir le sens
190

PLATE XLII.

ANATTO, BIX A ORE LL AN A, A RED DYE, OR PAINT,
IS MADE FROM THE SEED

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 191

dancing-staves and wonderful musical instruments, and dons
all his treasured ornaments, while his wife paints her most
dazzling skin costumes. He practises steps and capers,
tutors his voice to the songs ; meantime his children rehearse
assiduously in the privacy of their forest playground,
against the time when they too may take part in the tribal
festivities.

The entertainment demands elaborate preliminaries.
When any such carnival is on hand the old women of the
tribe for days previously are busied making cassava, and
with the preparation of kawana or other appropriate drinks.
The amount of liquid refreshment necessary for a large dance
is enormous, in view of the custom by which the liquor-
logged native simply steps aside, and by the insertion of a
finger down the throat is speedily ready for a further supply.
During the four or five days that a dance continues only the
old men among the Turuka will eat anything, and that
nothing more substantial than manioc starch ; the dancers
merely drink hashiri.

Nor is the inner man only to be considered. All sartorial
treasures, the feathers and necklaces of the men, the beaded
girdles of the women, are taken from their receptacles, the
wardrobes in the rafters of the maloka. The men — for the

de leurs paroles (Crevaux, p. ,104). There are old dances with words no
longer understood among the Tukano (Koch-Griinberg, p. 254). This is,
of course, by no means peculiar to the Amazonian Indians. Some of the
singing games played by children in British New Guinea have words whose
meanings are either obscure or lost (Barton, J.R.A ./., p. 269). Among the
Naga tribes the language of the songs " is known in many cases to be now
unintelhgible to those who sing them " (Hodson, Naga Tribes, p. 68) . Corrob-
borees are passed from one tribe to the other among the Australian natives,
" the result is that the words are, as a general rule, quite unintelligible to
the performers" (Spencer and Gillen, Central Australia, p. 281). Zulu
charm songs are said to be incomprehensible to the singers (Callaway,
Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 413). These instances might be multi-
phed, but they suffice to show that this survival of words with lost meanings
is world-wide.

As a curious contrast to this we find that the Spanish missionaries in
South America complained that they had great difficulty in getting their
converts to remember the Ave Maria and the Paternoster " seeing that the
words were mere nonsense to them " (Tylor, p. 96). It should not be for-
gotten though, in this connection, that the potency of a word is in inverse
ratio to its incomprehensibility. Cf. Brinton, Religions of Primitive
Peoples, p. 92.

192 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Amazonian male reserves to himself the greatest brilliance
of attire on occasions of ceremony — array themselves in their
feather tiaras, with necklaces, armlets, and sounding garters
of polished nuts. The maidens and matrons also apply
themselves to the elaboration of their toilets. No court
dressmaker ever gave more anxious thought to the fashion-
ing of chef-d'ceuvre in silk and brocade than do these dusky
daughters of Eve to the tracing of circles, angles, bands, and
frets upon their naked skins. Coquetry is as essential an
accompaniment of the savage dance, in the unmapped bush
of the Amazons, as in a garlanded ballroom of Mayfair. The
most vain of English beauties probably spends less time
over her adornment for any function than do these young
women as they squat in chattering crowds over the cala-
bashes of vegetable dye, white, scarlet, black, or purple, with
which they trace upon each other the cunning patterns that
make their only dresses.

When these preparations are satisfactorily advanced the
chief, or some one in authority, despatches his invitations,
no formal cards entrusted to a postman, but a summons
mysterious as a Marconigram, and imperious as a writ of
the High Court. The chief takes his stand between the
manguare, the signal drums slung from the rafters of the
great house, and with the rubber-headed drumstick he beats
out as message sonorous notes that travel to every Indian
within eight or nine miles. This summons is no mere
manipulation of the four notes which constitute the range
of the instrument, but an articulate message to convey the
time, the place, and the purpose of the meeting to the
initiated.

The numbers who congregate for a dance were a constant
source of astonishment to me. Out of the silent and track-
less bush scores of expectant guests, all painted and feathered,
will pour into the clearing about the maloka, at the time
appointed by the signal drum, and by nightfall some
hundreds are gathered. Great bonfires are set ablaze, and
the interior of the tribal lodge, where the chief has a place
in the centre, flares ruddy with the light of torches. The
men make loud clangour with their instruments, flutes, pan-

PLATE XLJIl.

HALF^GOURDS DECORATED WITH INCISED PATTERNS, MADE BY WITOTO

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE KARA PARANA RIVER
DUKAIYA (OKAINA) RATTLE MADE BY NUTSHELLS

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 193

pipes, or drums, and out in the clearing they form into hne,
clutching their jingling dance-poles, while the women form
up facing them. Led by a strenuous tribesman clattering
with nuts and dried seeds, the line begins its perambulation
of the maloka. Forward two steps — thud ! Backward two
steps — thud ! Clattering and pattering, with the fifes shriek-
ing high above all other sounds, as the drums growl deep
below, the procession slowly encircles the maloka, and then
enters. In a frenzied flutter of feathers and leaves the
performers move round the chief, to a jangle of seed-pods
and rattles, till the company is completed, and the tribal
lodge is packed with the dancers, when he signals for silence.
The dance stops. The instruments cease their outcry, and
in the sudden contrast of silence the chief sings a line which
is the keynote of the occasion, the explanation, the reason
for the assembly. Then dance and song begin, while those
who are not taking active part squat round upon their
haunches and ejaculate hoarse cries of approval and en-
couragement at intervals.

As aforesaid, any excuse is good enough reason for such
festival. Dances take place continuously : at the harvest
of the pine-apple and the manioc ; at the conclusion of a
successful hunt or war-expedition ; and at such other times
in the Amazonian season as the chief feels moved to give
entertainment. As the weather does not vary sufficiently
to influence the harvesting of the crops at any particular
date, there is no equivalent to our harvest ; and, though
manioc is planted as a rule just before the heaviest annual
rainfall becomes due, there is no part of the year when some
of the roots are not ready to gather. Pines are most plentiful
in October, and it is then that the special pine-apple dances
take place. ^

The dance takes its character from the occasion. The
dancing staff, unless the dance is in honour of some specific
thing, is undecorated, merely furnished with a calabash
that contains nuts, or with a carved head hollowed for the
same purpose, and is sometimes hung with bunches of dried

^ Possibly there may be a second pine harvest and dance, but the
great feast takes place in October.

194 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

seeds that rattle when shaken or when knocked on the
ground. These form important additions to the orchestra,
and to the garters and anklets strapped to the legs. Very
often the Indian decorates his staff with palm leaves merely
for ornament, but in the harvest dances the staves are
adorned with bunches of whatever crop is to be honoured —
a tuft of pine-apple leaves or a bundle of manioc shoots.
The Yakuna carve patterns on their dance staves.^ Among
the Tureka, north of the Japura, dance staves are a most
important possession, and are looked on with great affection
by their owners. The Tureka men wear aprons when danc-
ing, and use clappers in one hand, instead of the horns and
rattle used alternately by the Tukana.^ The Menimehe
carries a club in his right hand. On the Tikie, dancers are
said to hold a flute in the left hand, and always to have
a green twig under their girdle. Koch-Grunberg further
states that they have clay whistles with which they blow
at dances as well as for signals. These are not customs of
the Issa -Japura tribes.

The soloist who leads the dancers from the start outside
the maloka very probably commences by executing some
fancy high stepping. He may, for instance, prance like a
stallion, and this is calculated to amuse the company im-
mensely. When the performers get too heated by their
exertions in the house they will file outside, still dancing,
and after a few turns on the open space in front of the
maloka, will return within.

Among the Okaina and the Boro the hand is often
placed on the far shoulder of the next in hne. I
especially remember one endless dance in an Okaina house
in which all free performers were double locked, while those
in possession of staves or rattles were content with a single
lock to allow freedom for one hand. The dancers invariably
stand in single file, usually with one hand resting on the
shoulder of the next in line. The Menimehe and most other
tribes place the left hand on their neighbour's right shoulder,
but, according to Koch-Griinberg, tribes on the Tikie place

^ Koch-Griinberg mentions the same among the Opaina.
2 Koch-Griinberg.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 195

the right hand, though the Tukana rest the left. The figure
is composed of a broken circle of men thus linked together,
whilst in their free hands they hold the dancing staves,
rattles, or flutes. Within, and concentric, is the ring of
women dancers, who face the men and maintain a time
which is complementary and not identical with theirs.^
North of the Japura in some cases the women dance between
the men in the same circle,^ or the men and the younger
girls dance round the elder women. When dancing, per-
sonal touch is not tabu or disliked, possibly because it is
ceremonial or conventional. In most of these dances the
woman who is not engaged in the inner circle of the select —
the complementary figure of the dance — places herself
outside the outer circle with her left hand on the left shoulder
of the man of her choice. Her frontal portion is thus at
right angles, and away from that of her man.

The rhythm of the dance is always very marked. The
figures and steps are simple, neither suggestive nor lascivious,
and wholly destitute of the lustful invitation of the dances
of the East. The step is almost invariably a high, prancing
flexion of the thigh upon the body, followed by a deliberate
extension to the ground, repeated two or three times, the
advance being completed with a resounding stamp of the
right foot upon the earth, according to the accentua-
tion of the measure. The same steps are repeated back-
wards in retiring, although less ground is covered, so that
the dancers sway rhythmically forward and backward ;
but the end of each movement finds the whole line advanced
some little distance from where it was at the conclusion of
the previous one. The forward movement may be de-
scribed simply as, right foot forward, left foot forward,
stamp with right, right foot backward, left foot back-
ward, right foot back in position, toe on ground, to start

1 Maw describes quite a different arrangement in a dance at Tabitinga.
" The dancers were usually linked three together, one principal character
supported by two others, one on each side ; and there were generally two
sets dancing at the same time, each set being followed by women and
children dancing or jumping in the similar manner " (Maw, p. 220).

* Koch-Griinberg mentions a dance among tribes north of the Japura
where the men and women dance together in pairs. The women do not
wear aprons, and at the end of the figure they disappear.

196 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

da capo right foot forward, in uninterrupted repetition.
Spruce has described this movement as " a succession of
dactyls." ^ In stamping, which is done by all the dancers
in unison, the knee is brought up to a right angle with the
trunk, and the foot then thrust down with the whole weight
of the body. Toe with right is the same motion as stamp
right, but with only a slight flexion of the knee, and com-
paratively noiseless. The circles move to the right, con-
tinuing, but almost imperceptibly on account of slight
change of ground. The Tureka make a jump before the
stamp, shout at the end of the figure, and whistle through
their teeth.

While the principal dance is in progress a frequent form
of side-show to the main entertainment is the entrance of
a tribesman with a grievance. He will have made for
himself the most remarkable costume he can devise, and to
ensure that he shall gain attention, wears upon his head a
veritable ** matinee hat " of absurd proportions.^ He pays
no heed to the dance when he comes into the maloka, but
stalks solemnly to a position in the sight of all, though he
will keep out of the actual track of the dancers. Then,
standing stock-still with upraised hand, facing neither the
performers nor the " sitters out," but in any chance position,
he raises his staff and begins to recite his complaint to a
monotonous refrain. The following is a typical instance of
what may be chanted :

There came a man this morning to our lodge —
A man who took cassava from my woman.
Cassava she gave him in exchange for two pines,
For two pines she gave him much cassava.

^ Spruce, i. 313.

2 One is irresistibly reminded of the clown, especially of the comic man
who usually puts in an appearance at military sports. It is possible that
this custom of dressing-up to secure attention when airing a grievance is
what has been mistaken by some writers for a part of the dance. Sir Roger
Casement, quoting Maw in the Contemporary Review, September 19 12, talks
of " the masked men " as " a necessary part of each perforinance." It is
certainly quite unknown to me, for I never saw or heard of anything of the
kind, though in the first edition of Bates's Naturalist on the River Amazon
the frontispiece of the second volume gives a masked dance of the Tukuna,
so I do not suggest that masked dancers do not exist, only that they are
not known among the tribes of the Issa-Japura valleys.

PLATE XLV.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 197

But where are the pines ?

Where are the pines he promised ?

Was this man a thief ? —

This man who took cassava from my woman. ^

Or the complaint might run :

I came in with meat ;

The hungry man took my meat.

But promised me bread.

He gave me no bread.

And my belly is empty.

The following is a complaint made by a Boro chief's
daughter of her treatment by her own tribe :

The chief's daughter was lost in the bush,

And no one came to find the spoor;
The branches were broken and the leaves were turned.

And no one came to find the spoor.
And where were my brothers and the sons of the chief's brothers,

That no one came to find the spoor ? etc.

The petitioner will repeat his or her song for hours without
ceasing. To all appearance no one takes the slightest notice
of his presence, unless the dance should come to an end
during the recitation, when the performers jeer and laugh
at his tale of woe. This has no effect upon the plaintiff,
who continues gravely to voice his grievance. The chief
must, however, take note of the matter, and if it be thought
of sufficient importance it is brought up for discussion and
judgment at the next tribal conference in tobacco palaver.
At any rate, this method of airing a grievance has the
effect of placing the culprit on the black-list, in view of
the resultant publicity ; and the natural wariness that is
shown by others of the tribe in all dealings with such
suspect for the future, is in itself a punishment for the
crime.

It is difficult in the extreme to obtain any rehable evidence
of the existence of initiation dances. Sixty years ago Dr.
Russell Wallace described as the initiation dance of the girls

^ It must be remembered that Indians are extraordinarily generous, or
improvident, in the matter of food. I should never hesitate to join a
family party when feeding, without waiting for an invitation. The com-
plaint in question probably refers to a whole basket of manioc bartered
in the plantation, which transaction would belong to quite another category.

198 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

of the Uaupes a dance which, six years ago, Dr. Koch-
Griinberg, the latest and most painstaking of Amazonian
investigators, found as a Jurupari ceremony confined to
men on the river Aiary. The dance is the same in each
case, and depends for its distinction upon the infliction of
serious bodily injury. The mysteries of initiation, as has
been said, have not yet been fathomed in the Amazons,
nor have those of Jurupari. There is undoubtedly a dance
in which the performers beat their fellows with lianas until
the blood is drawn and the victims faint with pain, but no
white man has yet spoken with certainty upon its origin. ^
The dance is not known in the district between the Issa and
the Japura, nor do the mysteries of initiation fall to be
discussed in this chapter. Those are not matters which are
readily laid bare to even the most enterprising investigator
in the haunts of the aborigines.

According to Koch-Griinberg's account, all the women,
accompanied by the smaller boys, leave the maloka directly
the notes of the flutes are heard, and either hide in the woods
or in another house with closed exits. The performers
circle round in quick marching time, blowing their flutes,
which each holds in his right hand, his left resting on the
right shoulder of the next man. At the completion of the
circle they stand in line. One dancer then draws the long
whip they all carry under their right arms, and while his
companion holds his flute high up, blowing lustily, he gives
him three blows on the side and stomach heavy enough to
draw blood freely. This continues till all have taken part.
There is no singing, but the gaping wounds and much drink-
ing of kashiri rouse the performers to a state of wild excite-
ment. This dance is followed by an ordinary one, in which
the women take part.^ Obviously none of the Issa- Japura

^ Crevaux gives an account of an initiation dance where the torture
applied is by means of the application of stinging ants to the naked bodies
of the neophytes (Crevaux, pp. 245-50).

^ Koch-Griinberg, p. 188. The German doctor also gives an account of
a dance where boys and girls perform in couples. When the figures are
ended the couples withdraw into the forest, and night covers subsequent
proceedings. This takes place among the Yahuna of the Kuretu group.
The men of these tribes when summoned by drum to a dance leave their
women behind them.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 199

tribes practise this dance, for I never saw any signs of the
scars that must inevitably remain on the bodies of dancers
cut in this wholesale fashion.

The account given by Bates of a dance at the Feast of
Fruits among the Juri and the Passe Indians is an equally
good description of some of the Issa-Japura harvest dances.
The men carry long reeds instead of javelins, and with their
left hands on their neighbours* right shoulders move slowly
to right and to left. The accompaniment is a song as
drawling and monotonous as the movement, which will be
continued for upwards of an hour at a time.^

In the pine-apple dance the Indians tie pine leaves to
boughs and wave them as they move. The women of the
chief, and possibly all the women of the tribe, form a semi-
circle with the chief in the centre, sometimes alone, some-
times with others. They carry the mid-rib of the Trooly
palm or some similar wand, with a small pine, or often the
pine-top, tied to the end.

The proceedings at all harvest dances are very similar.
I give as example a Boro dance at the gathering of the
manioc, which is but an excuse for this dance, as manioc is
pulled up at all times and seasons. As is almost universal
in Indian dancing, the outer circle, or rather semicircle, is
composed of men. The women, fewer in number, stand
together in the centre, or each behind the man of her choice.
Their dancing staves are all decorated with bunches of
manioc shoots. The woman, with the nearer hand resting
on the man's shoulder, keeps step with him, moving to her
o\vn front and not sideways like the man, though in the
same direction. The inner group face the circle of men,
and their steps are complementary to those of the men, and
not identical with them. The chief starts the dance with
the first line of the song, his wife replies, and her answer is
echoed by the chorus of the chief's women.

Chief.
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has sown the pika 2 in the emie ? ^

^ Bates, ii. 207. ^ Manioc. ^ Plantation.

200 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Wife.
I have sown the pika long, long ago.
The maica ^ is sown with young shoots.

Chorus.
We have sown the pika long, long ago.
The maica is sown with young shoots.

Chief.
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has cut the pika in the emie ?

Wife.
I, even I myself, have cut the maica.
The maica is cut in the emie.

Chorus.
We, even we ourselves, have cut the maica.
The maica is cut in the emie.

Chief.
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has soaked the maica for the mao ? ^

Wife.
I, even I myself, have soaked the maica.
I have soaked the maica for the mao.

Chorus.
We, even we ourselves, have soaked the maica.
We have soaked the maica for the mao.

The whole process of growing, harvesting, and preparing
the manioc for cassava is thus related, then the chief will
ask :

Who has made the mao that I may eat ?

That my belly may swell with mao ?

Wife.
I, even I, have made the mao.
And my belly will swell with mao.

Chorus.
We, even we ourselves, have made the mao.
We will all eat that our bellies may swell,
That our bellies may swell with mao.

Chief.
Ina ? ina f ^ that your bellies are swollen ? •
Who has eaten the mao from the pika —
The pika in the emie ?

^ Manioc root. ^ Cassava. ' What is it ? what is it ?

PLATE XLVI.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 201

The suggestion is obviously that the women have stolen
and eaten the cassava of the chief, but it is made solely
to bring in the sexual suggestion. The women deny the
imputation, and declare that their belhes are empty, or that
they are great with child, not swollen with mao. The chief
will then ask why, or when, the belly fills with child, and so
the song continues on the lines of the sexual ideas introduced
until the finale is reached, when the chief would sing :

Imine, imine,

The women are good women,

Imine}

The Muenane, who occupy a part of the central Issa-
Japura watershed, between the Andoke and the Resigero,
possess a dance of their own, which has travelled into many
of the other tribes south of the Japura, and has become very
popular.2 This is a combination of a riddle and an animal
dance. The figure is formed as in the pine-apple dance,
but the centre is taken by a warrior who has gained a re-
putation as a wit. His business is to ask a riddle, which
will in all probabiHty be an original one, and he asks
it after the manner of a chant. Naturally a man with at
least the indigenous sense of wit is loudly applauded and
received with shrieks of laughter from the outset. The
dancers take up the chanted question as they rotate round
the questioner. At the end of the measure the dance stops,
and the riddler rushes frantically round the circle with a
lighted torch, looking, like Alcibiades, for a man — to answer
his riddle. He stops suddenly, thrusts his torch into the
face of a performer, and, peering into his eyes to seek for
some sign of answering intelligence, repeats his question.
The answer, if in the negative, is given — whatever the tribe
dancing may be — in the tongue of the originators of the
dance, Muenane — "Jana" (I do not know). The dancer
thereupon, having failed to reply correctly, is then impressed
to be a follower of the questioner, and must rush after him

^ It is good.

2 As proof that this dance is borrowed, and not common to all the
tribes that dance it, is the fact that all tribes, whatever their language-
group, use the Muenane words for the answer.

202 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

and imitate all his antics, which are apparently to give the clue
to the riddle. In a short time a long single file of these
failures is engaged in presenting a burlesque of the habits
of the animal whose name is the answer required. The first
performer who guesses correctly becomes the questioner in
turn, and the dance starts afresh.

It may be pertinent here to relate an incident which tends
to convey at least an insight into the Indian character,
the lack of altruism, the love of discomfiture of others.
On one occasion the questioner — evidently to take a rise
out of a stranger, and being intoxicated, if not with coca at
least with the dancing mania — thrust his torch into my face,
nearer than would be tolerated in the usual way. I quickly
placed my foot on his chest, with the resultant back-somer-
sault of torch and man. The shrieks of laughter lasted a
considerable time. I was the hero of the hour, and custom
decreed that the victim should laugh at his own discomfiture.

All Indians are clever mimics, and the fidelity with which
they reproduce the actions of jaguars, tapirs, monkeys,
parrots, and other familiar animals of the bush is remarkable.
The riddles are nearly always concerned with animals, and
the test of wit is the amount of sexual suggestion contained
in the reply.^ A typical query is, " When is a howler-monkey
not a howler ? " The answer would be, '* When he is cover-
ing his mate.*' The dumb show of the actors delights the
audience, and leaves no small characteristic to the imagina-
tion. The riddles may defy translation, but the actions are
certainly not beyond interpretation.

In this connection it is well to refer again to the subject
of dance intoxication. The excitement due to rhythmic
motion struck me very forcibly. It should be remembered
too that the men are heroic cocainists, and this stimulant,
in forcing the imagination, undoubtedly for the moment —
qua alcohol — has an aphrodisiacal tendency. The sexual
innuendoes of the songs, though not of the dance, increase
the effect. It must also be borne in mind that five days
and nights is not an uncommon limit to one dance. It
may cease at sunrise for a short space, and individuals,

^ See Appendix.

PLATE XLVII.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 203

of course, rest and sleep as nature may dictate, but never,
to my knowledge, for any length of time.

On one occasion I was witness to the most remarkable
salacity on the part of an individual. In my innocence I
considered it part of the dance, and was satisfied with the
idea that I had at last happed upon the indigenous counter-
part of the coition and parturition dances of the East. It
was not until the man was restrained by order of the chief
that the true facts were realised.^ But this was exceptional.
The dance is carried on with frenzy and excitement, but
with nothing beyond that. It never touches eroticism. ^
The dance never ends, as we know ending. It dwindles to
cessation.

Another dance, much appreciated by the tribes between
the Issa and the Japura, is not very dissimilar in essentials
from the musical chairs of our childhood. The dancers form
into a line, or two parallel lines, and, headed by the song-
leader, carry out the customary step in single file. At the
leader's mention of a certain word, or perhaps a certain
subject, previously agreed upon, the whole line must right-
about turn, and pick up the step again without losing a beat.
Those who fail are withdrawn from the line. The dance
continues until the fittest alone remain, and is productive
of general amusement.

But there are more tragic inspirations for a dance than
the guessing of riddles or the garnering of the crops. I refer
to the triumphant home-coming of tribal warriors, laden with
booty from the war-path, with a band of doomed prisoners.
The treatment of the latter and their disposal at the feast

^ The individual in question was labouring under the most extra-
ordinary sexual excitement. This may have been due to coca influence,
to the lubricity of the song words, or to the intoxication due to rhythmic
movement. The first two possible causes are eliminated by the fact
that Indians are almost continually under the influence of the drug, and
that no song could be more lewd than the ordinary conversation of these
people.

* These Muenane riddle dances somewhat resemble the Pirapurasseya,
or fish dance, seen by Bates at Ega. The performers joined hands in a ring
and questioned the leader in the centre, who finally might try to rush the
ring, and when successful was succeeded by whoever might be responsible
for his escape (Bates, ii. 276). im Thurn's description of a Guiana animal
dance also tallies more or less with these dances. See im Thurn, p. 324.

204 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

have been already dealt with. But the cannibal ritual of
insult is not the end. When the orgy of blood and gluttony
is over, the warriors must dance. Only the men may take
part in the feast, so only the men may participate in this
dance. The music is chiefly that of the drums, and to their
gloomy rolling — according to Robuchon's account — the
warriors lurch portentously, drunk already with victory,
and excited by dancing. They break apart frequently to
stir the great troughs of liquor with the forearms of their dead
enemies, and to quaff deep calabashes full of drink. Then
they stagger back to the wild intoxication of the dance.
Their songs become shrieks, demoniacal, helHsh. For eight
days this horrible dance of triumph continues, while the
captive boys and girls, young enough to be saved from the
fate of the earthen pot, cower in the darkness of the maloka
and suffer, perforce in silence, the gibes of the women. But
this scene defies description.

Set against the darkly impressive background of the
forest any tribal dance gives an amazing effect of kaleido-
scopic light and colour when, with nightfall, by the flare of
great fires and the glow of torches, the performance begins.
The chosen soloist of the tribe jangling his circlets of nuts,
sounding his gourd rattle, in a falsetto voice sings the ancient
air of the dance. The warriors follow the melody in canon.
Then slowly the great line of naked men, arms interlocked
about each other's necks, surges forward two steps in perfect
time, pauses a moment, then recedes two steps. In a little
while the whole earth shakes with the swing of the movement.
It is like the flowing and ebbing of mighty waves upon a
shore. It intoxicates with the recurrence of the accentua-
tion. Slowly round the big maloka the procession passes,
swaying in unison. The streaked and banded women dance
uniformly in an opposite direction. The fires splutter and
blaze. The torches cast strange shadows. The flutes, the
pan-pipes, and the drums blare, bleat, and boom their
barbaric accompaniment.

It is a mad festival of savagery. The naked men are
wildly excited ; their eyes glare, their nostrils quiver, but
they are not drunk. The naked women abandon themselves

PLATE XLVIII.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 205

to the movement of the dance ; they scream their chorus to
the tribal dance-song ; but they are not lewd. There is about
it an all-pervading, illimitable delirium. The wild outburst
affects even the stranger in their midst. Forgotten cells
in his brain react to the stimulus of the scene. He is no
longer apart, alien in speech and feehng. He locks arms
in the line of cannibals, sways in rhythm with them, stamps
as solemnly, and sings the meaningless words as fervently
as the best of them. He has bridged an age of civilisation,
and returned to barbarism in the debased jetsam of the river
banks. It is the strange fascination of the Amazons.

CHAPTER XVI

Songs the essential element of native dances — Indian imagination and
poetry — Music entirely ceremonial — Indian singing — Simple melodies
— Words without meaning — Sense of time — Limitations of songs —
Instrumental music — Pan-pipes — Flutes and fifes — Trumpets — Juru-
pari music and ceremonial — Castanets — Rattles — Drums — The man-
guare — Method of fashioning drums — Drum language — Signal and
conversation — Small hand-drums.

In considering the native dances it must be remembered
that the accompanying songs are essential elements of the
entertainment : they mark the character of the dance ;
and equally, in considering the songs, it must be remem-
bered that the imagination of the native never goes beyond
the relation of the sexes. The Indian's poetry is an inverted
form of romanticism. Instead of seeking to give rhythmical
expression to an idealisation, to find in the beauties of
Nature an analogy to the realities of Life, he reverses the
process. For instance, he views a ripe fruit, and it only
suggests to him a pregnant woman. In all such natural
phenomena as he recognises he notes but the crude, if
possibly the scientific, origin. In the most ordinary con-
versation he refers to conditions that appear indecent in
common print ; they are, however, undetachable from him.
So it is that in his songs he debases idealism, does not
elevate realism. His poetry is on a par with that of the
music-hall comedian who conceals a mass of filth under
avowedly innocent words — but the intention is very different.
The Indian possesses no other verbal vehicle, knows no other
source of inspiration. His imagination is bound by his
vocabulary, as his vocabulary is limited by his imagination.
Curiously enough the effect upon his audience is gained by
the same means as those employed by the red-nosed singer
206

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 207

in the places of entertainment south of the Bridges, and is
almost identical in degree. Some of the Londoners of the
County Council schools have advanced ethically but little
beyond their naked brothers of the Amazonian bush.

These Indians cannot be said to love music for its own
sake. The use of music in any form is almost entirely
ceremonial. They neither sing nor play instruments as a
rule merely for pleasure. On the occasions of their festivals
and dances, though, they give evidence of the possession of
voices of considerable flexibility. They also display much
ingenuity in the manufacture of their instruments, and,
next to their weapons, the pan-pipes, flutes, and drums are
most carefully fashioned and preserved. In fact, these
take precedence over all domestic implements, and even
most ornaments.

The native singing voice is loud, high, and shrill. The
male leader — as a rule it is a man who is appointed, and
he may be any one who knows the old songs — sings the
solo, to give the chorus their cue, in a high falsetto which
is very penetrating, and marks both time and tune for the
others to follow in canon. The song is started softly,
and gradually increases both in volume and speed. Accord-
ing to the circumstances, the subject, and the occasion, the
men sing alone, the women sing alone, or the men and
women combine as in the tribal dances. Most of the singing
is done in unison, with a regular drone accompaniment from
those not actually articulating the words. The songs are
sung in regular time, to the accompaniment of stamping,
but not with hand-clapping. The melodies are simple, and
in the definite tribal songs consist of little more than a
single phrase that seems to admit of no variation, and is
repeated ad libitum, as, for example, Mariana Keibeio, a
Boro tribal song. The tune of this, notated from memory,
and in part from a phonograph record, runs approximately,
so far as it can be rendered in our notation :

I Da Capo.
Via • ri • a - na Kei • bei - o Ma - ri - a - na Kei - bei • o.

What this implies no Indian now knows, for with. all

2o8 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

tribal songs the natives offer no explanation of their mean-
ing or their origin. They are the songs that their fathers
sang, and one can find no evidence of the amendation or
emendation of the score on the part of their descendants.
These tribal lays are so old that the words are obsolete and
no longer understood by the singers ; what is of importance
is the rhythm, and to that, as is common with unciviHsed
peoples, the music is largely subordinated. It is but an
accompaniment to the dancing. " The sense of time " in
the Indian, as Stevenson noted among the South Sea
Islanders, " is extremely perfect," and one might complete
the quotation and add, " I conceive in such a festival that
almost every sound and movement fell in one." ^ It is not
an easy matter to discuss, because the English and the
Indian standpoint are so diametrically opposite. So far as
I could judge the tunes are usually in a minor key, both
melody and harmony being of the simplest.

There are no love-songs among the Indians, for the poetic
conception of love does not exist. Sacred songs and nursery
songs are equally lacking. A mother never croons to her
baby ; she does not understand a lullaby. War-songs are
merely the expression of the war-dance ; they depend for
their significance upon the words and for their ferocity upon
the grim accentuation of the chorus.

At the time of the harvest of pine-apples, when the great
dance is held, the men sing the challenge, and the women
reply in their own defence. The songs are similar to that
sung at the manioc-gathering dance, and I have previously
tried to give some idea of such a song.

Apart from the traditional songs of the tribes, which are
sacred and unchangeable, the Indians are very fond of a
form of song which is really a game rather than a musical
effusion. More correctly, perhaps, it should be called a
ballad. 2 A leader of acknowledged fertility of imagination
and fluency of expression is appointed, as for the Muenane

^ R. L. Stevenson, In the South Seas (Pocket Edition, 1908), p. 100.

'^ " Dancing to the accompaniment of the human voice only. The
word ballad is derived from this." Ital. ballare = to dance. See Games,
Sports, and Pastimes, by D. H. Moutray Read, in the new Folklore
Handbook,

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 209

riddle dance, and will collect the members of the tribe for
what is actually an impromptu dance. He, or she, will
chant to an improvised air with a simple rhythm, while the
chorus repeat each line or its burden as a refrain. Such songs
give opportunity for all the wit of the tribe. They are
designed either to honour or to ridicule the subject of the
ballad. In reality a composition of this description takes
hours to sing. The first wit propounds the question, the
chorus repeat it, and the second wit then suggests the
answer, which is again repeated by all amid much laughter,
and the repetition is continued not once but twenty times,
until the first wit breaks in with a new query. This is a
very favourite game among the women.

The following is an attempt to suggest the song-words of
a dance performed by some Witoto for my benefit, though
I do the Indians too much justice, give too great an idea of
continuity, in this version. There is no cohesion in their
productions, and reiteration is the salient feature of all.
The sound and the rhythm suggested to me at the time the
metre of Hiawatha, so I give this song in an attempt at
Hiawathian measure. But the adaptation is really too
varied for the Indian original. I was outside the maloka
when the women started — no men took part — and they
danced in front of me. After a time I went inside, and the
performers promptly followed me, and continued to dance
in the central space of the house. Naturally not one word
would have been sung if these dancers had known it would
be interpreted to me.

To our tribe there comes a stranger.
Comes a welcomed, honoured stranger.
And whence comes to us this stranger ?
From what far and foreign country ?
Wherefore comes this friend among us ?
What the quest that brings him hither ?
Are there in his native country
Empty fields and unkind women,
That he comes to seek among us.
So to satisfy his wishes ?

By what name is called the stranger ?
Tell us what his people call him.

210 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Call him Whiffena Ri-e-i ;

Call him Whiffena, the White Man.

Partly, too, his name's Itoma.

But — his friends and bosom cronies —

Tell us, how do they address him ?

He is nicknamed by his cronies

Ei-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard.

Ei-fo-ke, the Turkey Buzzard,
Is this, then, the name endearing
That his lovers whisper to him
When of him they grow enamoured ?
No, not good ! The Turkey Buzzard
Is a bird with beak of scarlet,
Yes, a long sharp beak of scarlet.
And a loose and hanging wattle.
No, his name is not Ei-fo-ke.
Let his love-name be Okaina 1

This went on ad nauseam. The true object in all such
songs is to bring in and discuss sexual matters, and no
song has advanced far before it has become essentially
carnal in idea and thoroughly licentious in expression.

Although instruments are always employed at the dances
they do not seem to be introduced with any idea of organised
accompaniment, but only to help swell the body of sound.
The natives, being ignorant of the use of metal, have been
forced to make their instruments entirely of vegetable
substances ; the only other material used is bone, human
bone, hien entendu, and judging from a specimen presented
by Robuchon to the British Museum, the shell of a small
land tortoise. Their instruments of percussion are drums,
castanets, and rattles : their wind-instruments are flutes
and pan-pipes. Very rarely a solitary Indian may be found
playing the flute, apparently for his personal amusement
and solace. As a rule, it is merely used in combination with
its fellows to increase the volume of sound without heed to
its proper place in harmony.

The pan-pipes are the simplest of all instrunients of
Amazonian music to make, and are the most universally
popular. They consist of a bundle of reeds — three, five, six,
seven, ten, or even seventeen in number — bound together

PLATE XLIX.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 211

with palm-fibre, or, on the Napo, with finely split cane.
Although the pipes are cut to lengths yielding the necessary
musical intervals, the number seems to be purely arbitrary.
They are used in concert with all other instruments, and
mark so much of tune as the Indian orchestra strives to
attain. The pan-pipes shown in the accompanying illustra-
tion are Witoto instruments contrasted with the neater
finish of one made on the Napo. The latter has the greater
number of pipes, and all relatively smaller. There is
nothing complicated about the make of either set. The
cane pipes are cut immediately below the natural joint,
and the node is thus made to serve as a stop.^

The ubiquitous bamboo also furnishes the material for
a larger flute, and flutes or fifes are made out of the arm-bones
of prisoners taken in battle. After the victim is killed and
eaten the humerus is cleaned, its extremities opened, and
the soft matrix scooped out. Finger-holes are bored in the
shaft of the bone, usually three in number, but occasionally
five. When human bones are not forthcoming the tribesman
uses the leg-bone of a jaguar. This is opened at the end
and furnished with a wax stop that leaves a small canal
open to a three - cornered air - hole. Occasionally one of
these flutes is made with both ends open, in which case a
square or semicircular hole is cut out from the upper rim.
The flute is held against the lower lip, and commonly has
three, or more rarely four, sound-holes. Flutes are also
made of heron-bones, open at the lower end, with a square
air - hole, and generally four sound - holes. These have
mouthpieces made of leaves, and their tones are exceedingly
shrill. But the most curious instruments of which I have
note are flutes made from skulls of animals, by covering
them with pitch, and only leaving open the holes of the nose
and the occipital bone. One hole is blown through, the
other is the sounding-hole. Many of the Indian instruments,
especially the bone flutes, are gaily ornamented with elabor-
ate incised patterns that are dyed black and red with

^ North of the Japura the tribes use what are known as Yapurutu pan-
pipes, which are usually played in pairs. The Tukana call them bupupo
ox yapurato (Koch-Griinberg, p. 300).

212 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

vegetable extracts. The flutes are also adorned with
tassels of cotton or paJm-fibre.

The flute or fife is played from the extremity that is
rudely fashioned into a mouthpiece. No native trumpets
are provided with sliding tubes like the familiar trombone,
and there is no plug in the mouth-hole. Nor are any of
the Amazonian wind-instruments fitted with a vibrating
reed. There are no bagpipes, and, in the regions I traversed,
no stringed instruments. Certain tribes north of the Japura,
notably the Desana, use whistles made of clay, which they
employ both as alarm signals and as adjuncts to the dance.

Trumpets of bark and bamboo have an irregular distri-
bution. Many tribes dispense with them on all ordinary
occasions, and confine their use to Jurupari music. These
sacred instruments constitute one of the most profound
mysteries of the Amazon. They are lengthy affairs, made
from the hollow stem of a palm, and fitted with a trumpet
mouthpiece. The note is akin to that of the bassoon.
These trumpets are tribal possessions, and are kept con-
cealed at a distance from the maloka, in a hut which the
women are never permitted to enter, and where the various
secret paraphernalia connected with boy initiation — such
as the whips of tapir hide — are stored. It is a capital
crime for any woman even to set eyes upon them. The
Jurupari trumpet is as tabu to Indian women as the bull-
roarer of the Australian native is to his women-folk.^ The
Indian girls are brought up in the belief that the music of
the trumpets is an essential element in the exorcism of the
evil spirit from the body of the youthful initiate, and that
any interference on their part must lead to the eternal
residence of such spirit in the novice, to the consequent
disaster of the tribe, and this behef holds good all their lives. ^
No sooner is Jurupari music heard approaching the maloka

1 Cf. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 345, chap, xi., etc.
Bull -roarer too sacred for women to see in Muralug Island, Torres
Straits {Expedition Torres Straits, iv. 276; v. 217).

2 Cf. Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia. Sound
supposed by women and children to be the voice of the great spirit assisting
at the boy's initiation.

Also Howitt, pp. 594-5 ; Andrew Lang on " the Bull-roarer " in Custom
and Myth ; Haddon, Study of Man, p. 309.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 213

than all the women and uninitiated hurry to the bush, and
remain in hiding until the ceremony is concluded and the
trumpets have been returned to their tabernacle. What
the ceremony may be is held a profound secret, and the
punishment for infringement is death.^ As a rule two of
these sacred trumpets are used, and they are tuned to the
same pitch, though differing in their tone according to their
length. They are only used north of the Japura ; south of
that river the tribes have no Jurupari music and only know
them as employed ceremonially by their neighbours in con-
nection with initiation secrets to frighten their women.

The Tukana when dancing use a trumpet alternately
with their rattles ; and the Indians north of the Japura
have regular castanets, made of blocks of hard wood, which
are manipulated with one hand, much in the manner that
the nigger - minstrel plays the "bones." All the tribes
make rattles of small gourds by the simple method of partly
filling the calabash with dried seeds, or fruit stones, and
inserting a wooden handle so that they can be shaken in
time to the dance. Some of these are of the roughest, the
stick of the handle quite untrimmed ; others are more
finely finished, and the polished black surface of the gourd
may be ornamented with designs in colour, or incised
patterns. But these are by no means the only rattles used
at a dance. The Indians have them of many kinds and
descriptions. The smaller are worn as armlets, wristlets,
leglets, and anklets. These are made of nuts, strung with
coloured beads on palm fibre, and very carefully fashioned.
The leg rattles are frequently handsome ornaments, the
rich brown of the glossy nutshell making a splendid contrast
with the blue or red of the Brummagem beads. The finest
are made from a nut not unlike the Brazil nut of commerce
in shape, but less angular. That shown in Plate XLIII. has
natural groovings and marks which give the polished sections
the appearance of being engraved. A section of the shell
is cut off, thoroughly cleaned and polished, then attached
by a short string of beads to the main leg- or arm-band

' See Koch-Griinberg ; Hurabolt, ii. 363; Nery, p. 261 ; Spruce, ii. 416;
Wallace, pp. 348-9.

214 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

from which these nut sections hamg bell-like. The arm
rattles are made of smaller nuts, some are not unlike an
oval hazelnut, flat on one side, cut in half and highly polished.
The nut is, roughly speaking, some three-quarters of an inch
across and long. These also are hung on threads of beads
pendant a quarter of an inch apart from the connecting
beaded string. Leg rattles are made of larger nuts, and one
variety is made in the form of a bunch, not a band or chain.
The beads used for these are blue and red in colour, and
the bunch of nuts on their beaded strings is fastened with
plaited palm-fibre beneath the knee. The whole effect is
most distinctly ornamental. The jangle of two or three of
these nutshell bells is not unpleasant : there is almost a
tinkle in their clatter, but the volume of sound obtainable
from a number of them is remarkable, and so is the
precision with which they accentuate the rhythm of
movement.

The Indians have no cymbals, gongs, or bells ; but the
drum is an important factor not only in native music, but
in native life. The drum is the telegraph of the Amazons.
In fact, the most remarkable of all the native instruments
is the manguare or signal drum. Although the primary
use of this drum is to signal, it is utilised on great occasions
as an addition to the aboriginal orchestra. To make this
important adjunct of the maloka two blocks of hard wood
are chosen, some six feet in length, and about twenty-
four inches in diameter. These blocks are very carefully
hollowed out by means of heated stones that are introduced
through a narrow longitudinal slit, and char the interior.
Instead of endeavouring, however, as would be the case
with an ordinary drum, to contrive as nearly perfect a
cylinder as possible, the object of the signal-drum maker
is to obtain a husk of varying thicknesses, so as to secure
differences in note. Accordingly, with his rude implements,
hot stones, capybara-tooth borer, and stone axe, he fashions
the interior of the drum in such a manner that the outer
shell, the sounding-board, varies in thickness from half an
inch to four inches. Two blocks are used ; the smaller is
called the male, and the larger the female. The ends are

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

215

simply the wood of the tree which is not removed, all the
hollowing being accomplished by means of the grooved sht.
When finished these are suspended by withes at an oblique
angle, one end much higher than the other — say six feet
and three feet respectively from the ground. They hang
from the rafters of the maloka, or from an upright frame,
and present the appearance of two barrels surmounted by
a narrow slit.^

L..-.Wood.

Fig. 9.

The musician takes his stand between these drums and,
with a wooden mallet headed with a knob of rubber, beats out
his message or his tune. Altogether he has a range of four
notes — two low ones on the female manguare, and two high
ones on the male. On these he rings the changes with great
rapidity, and produces a sound which, though not startlingly
loud, has such penetrating qualities that it can be heard
twenty miles away. He beats very quickly in short and
long strokes, not unlike the Morse Code. By means of the
manguare a skilled signaller can carry on a conversation as
accurately as a telegraph operator at St. Martin's-le-Grand,
or a soldier with a heliograph — but how he does it is another
secret of the Amazonian bush. When used for its proper

* There are two in the British Museum on the top shelf in the South
American room.

2i6 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

purpose as signal drum, the Boro and the Okaina can carry
on conversations upon almost any subject within their ken.
Other tribes are only able to distinguish between a warning
of danger and an invitation to a dance. Brown could use
the drum for small matters — he could hurry the bearers
out of the bush for example. He said there was no code,
but that the signaller tried to represent the sound of words
with the drum, and Indians invariably told me that they
made the words with the drum. However, with a language
dependent on inflection, as theirs unquestionably is, there
must be a code of some description.

India-rubber, which has added a new and awful terror
to the life of the forest Indian, is only employed by these
tribes to make the drum mallet, used with the manguare,
and the latex for depilatory purposes. The Witoto call the
mallet ouaki, the drum is hugwe.

These great signal drums have designs worked upon
them in which the organs associated with the presumed sex
of the instrument are prominent ; and, after the manner of
the natives, both instruments are invariably distinguished
internally with the proper sexual characters, the female
drum having two breasts pendant inside.

Even in the construction of a small playing drum much
time and ingenuity are expended. First an acta palm ^
is selected, cut down, and a section of the trunk laboriously
hacked off. This section in turn is carefully hollowed,
until only a thin shell remains. Some tribes use a section
of bamboo in place of the hollowed palm, but these never
secure so fine an instrument or so fine a note as the palm
trunk makes. Over the two ends of the cylinder dried
monkey skin is tightly stretched — preferably that of the
howler monkey, as it is popularly supposed to produce a
louder and more rolling sound. Some tribes then fasten
across one end of this drum a very tight cord, into the
centre of which has been tied a fine sliver of wood. By
this means two notes are obtained — the open note where
nothing interferes with the vibrations of the drumhead,
and the closed note where the vibrations of the splinter

^ Mauritia flexiiosa.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 217

intersect those of the skin. A very inferior instrument is
made with agouti skin over a bamboo cyHnder. The drums
made on the Napo River look very much Hke an EngHsh
child's toy drum, rather high and narrow, and, of course,
made entirely without metal. The sides bulge slightly,
and have crossed threads of fibre string. The vellum of the
drumhead is kept in its place tautly by a close-fitting ring.
These drums are usually decorated, and are objects of barter
among many of the tribes. They are played with the
fingers only, not with drumsticks or mallet.

CHAPTER XVII

The Indians' magico-religious system — The Good Spirit and the Bad
Spirit — Names of deities — Character of Good Spirit — His visit to
earth — Question of missionary influence — Lesser subordinate spirits —
Child-Ufting — No prayer or supphcation — Classification of spirits —
Immortality of the soul — Land of the After-Life — Ghosts and name
tabu — Temporary disembodied spirits — Extramundane spirits — Spirits
of particularised evils — Spirits of inanimate objects — The jaguar and
anaconda magic beasts — Tiger folk — Fear of unknown — Suspicions
about camera — Venerated objects — Charms — Magic against magic —
Omens.

Some travellers and writers have asserted that the Indian
has no religion. In the vulgarly-accepted meaning of the
word he may have none. There is great variation among
the groups, the tribes even — I venture to say — among the
individuals. So far as they believe in anything they believe
in the existence of supreme good and bad spirits ; but their
beliefs are always indefinite, only half understood even by
themselves. To a certain extent it is open to the medicine-
man, the chief priest of their magico-religious system, to
vary, or even to disregard any current belief. Among
individuals are to be found sceptics of every grade. On
the whole their religion is a theism, inasmuch as their
God has a vague, personal, anthropomorphic existence.
His habitat is above the skies, the blue dome of heaven,
which they look upon as the roof of the world that
descends on all sides in contact with the earth. Yet again
it is a pantheism, this God being represented in all beneficent
nature ; for every good thing is imbued with his spirit, or
with individual spirits subject to him.

In essence the idea of God is not that of a Supreme
Being, and not entirely that of a Creator, but rather that of
a Superior Being, possessed by an indulgent tolerance for
all mankind. But he suggests only the negative idea. He

218

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 219

is a spirit of benevolent passivity. He is good for no other
reason than that he is not evil. There is no particularised
sanctity in his name, no adoration of his nebulous person-
ality, only an unquestioning acquiescence in his benignity.
True, he is held in high esteem, but that is because he per-
meates all in nature that is not inimical, and thus demon-
strates his kindly disposition. If the harvest fails it is due
to the malevolence of their Diabolus, or some of his agents,
yet if it be a good one the credit is due not to the Good
Spirit, but rather to the medicine-man for having with his
magic frustrated the machinations of the Bad Spirit.

This Devil, or Bad Spirit, is affirmative in character, and
is always active. He must not be invoked, but he is to be
prevented by charms and magic from wreaking his vengeance
on mankind, and must be placated at all costs as the supreme
author of sickness and misfortunes, and the controlling
power of malevolent nature.

Both the Good and the Bad Spirit are attended by lesser
spirits with similar characteristics. So far as I could
ascertain, there is no suggestion that any of these super-
natural beings ever lived in this world, though they influence
it so entirely, and can visit it at will.

The Good Spirit may be more potent, but he is certainly
more remote than the Bad Spirit — too remote for ordinary
people to be brought into any degree of contact with him
whatsoever. His influence, his benefits, are, as he is, passive.
The Bad Spirit, on the contrary, is of a ceaseless energy.
His active influence is invariably present. He is always
exerting his power in some definite, some concrete form.
Poison, for example, is an active agent. The devil in it
works vigorously to the undoing of his victim, definitely
exercises a deleterious effect upon his enemy, man. So, too,
the rocks that bar the way upstream are more active than
passive. They repel, they may defeat the traveller, and,
therefore, are to be regarded also as the active agents of a
hostile power.

It is noteworthy in this connection that the Bad Spirit
may be materialised sufficiently to be able to carry a child
bodily away, or to steal a woman, should she stray out into

220 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

the forest by herself .^ For this reason usually no woman will
go alone into the bush, she will take a companion with her,
especially at night, for the demon is popularly supposed to be
unable to tackle more than one at a time, even if the second
be only a young child.^ Women who run away from their
husbands are consequently said by them to have been taken
by the devil. This is a favourite theory, as the man may
thereby avoid the censure or hostility of the tribe. The
men also do not care to be far in the bush alone, and after
dark nothing will induce an Indian voluntarily to embark
on the risk of adventuring into the forest by himself.

One of the first difficulties met with when dealing in
detail with the religion of these peoples is their refusal to
use the true name of any spirit or deity. This has root in
the same reason that ordains they shall never disclose their
own names, nor voluntarily except on rare occasions, that
is without questioning, the name of their tribe.

In the Boro language we have the word Neva as an
equivalent for God, the good or sympathetic deity, and the
word Navena for the Devil, the great evil or antipathetic
spirit, in fact the negative of all represented by Neva. But
inasmuch as neva stands also for the sun, the dawn, and the
morning, while navena is used for any spirit however humble
— ^whether the soul-part of a thing, animate or inanimate,
or the ghost or disembodied soul of the dead — ^we have a
right to postulate that such are not the true, or supposed
self-appellated names of these deities, but those that may be
used without offence, and therefore free of the consequent
evils that the mention of the true name would entail on
the users.

To give another example : In Witoto Usiyamoi has the
same meaning as God in ordinary parlance ; Taife is the
Devil, whereas Taifeno is any bad spirit whatever. But,
again, the Taife, the dread of these people, the all-pervading
evil genius, is named Apuehana, a word never pronounced
above a whisper. Here then we may have reached a true
secret name.

^ Cf. spencer and Gillen, op. cit. p. 517.

2 The one exception being where parturition is imminent, and no help-
mate is available.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 221

The Boro Neva and the Witoto Usiyamoi are the Tupano
of the Tupi-Guarani tribes of the east and the Negro River.
This we find is the Apunchi-Yaya of the Guichua of the
west, the Cachimana of the Orinoco. Navena and Taife or
Apuehana are the same as the Jurupari of the north, the
lolokiamo of the Orinoco, and the Locazy of the Ticuna.^

To return to the personal characteristics of the two reg-
nant powers, the Good and the Bad Spirit, the former,
though vague, is yet an omnipotent tempestipresent deity,
and, although passive, something more than sympathetic
and benevolent. He made the world, or it might be more
correct to put it that he permitted it to be created, for his
amusement and pleasure. When not otherwise engaged in
his mysterious happy hunting-grounds he keeps a watch
over earth and over mankind. But so great is he that no
prayer or invocation is offered to him, nor, were it offered,
could he be thereby influenced.^ It is because he is so big
a Chief that his attitude is entirely passive. Once Neva had
forgotten the puny human factor, so he took the guise of a
man and came to earth. The open spaces — the natural
savannahs or geological outcrops — are where he spoke to
the Indians, and it is a sign of his speaking and of his erst-
while presence that these are now open to the sun and the
sky. But one Indian vexed Neva, the Good Spirit, and
he was wrath with all men, so he went again to sit on the
roof of the world. But before he departed he whispered
into the ears of all the tigers that they were to kill the
Indians and their children, and that is why the tigers to-day
are wicked and sometimes are the habitations of the most
evil spirits. Before this time the tigers were good to men,
and they hunted together like brothers ; they lived together
in the houses ; they ate and drank and licked tobacco in
amity round the fire.^

* See Appendix.

' Compare with identity of the white culture-hero of the higher South
American cultures, Quetzalcoatl of the Nahua, Uiracocha of Peru, Tsuma
of Venezuela. Note this being came from the East. See Joyce, p. 12.
He is in fact the Atahocan of the Algonquin " remote from the world, to
whom no worship was paid" (Ratzel, ii. 144).

' According to the Malays' anthropomorphic ideas concerning the

222 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Such, so far as I could gather, is the Indian's belief.
The tale was told me by a Boro, but the belief is approxi-
mately the same with all these tribes. On the occasion of
hearing this story of the visit of the Good Spirit to earth I
related, to the best of my abihty, the Christian story.
The result may be of value in determining the possession of
logic by the Indian. After they had listened to my story
the tribesmen held a tobacco palavar, which lasted some six
hours. Then the chief — the medicine-man was surly and
remote — appeared, and this was the burden of his wisdom.
His own people were greater than the people from the clouds
— the white people — ^for the Good Spirit, Neva himself,
came to the Indians, whereas only the Young Chief visited
the clouds. And the Indians were better than the white
people, for the white people killed the Young Chief, but the
Indians listened to Neva, and only one among them vexed
him.

I had heard the story of the Good Spirit's manifesta-
tion before, but doubted its genuineness, until one day
when I inquired of a Boro what a savannah was he
answered me that it was where Neva spoke to the
Indians. When I questioned him further he told me the
above. It is impossible to say how far this story may be
a genuine folk -tale, how far it is a perverted version of
the Biblical account. Tales travel far. They are adopted
from one people to another, with resultant variations. We
know that the Jesuits penetrated to the Rio Negro as early
as 1668-69. There have been missionaries of that Society
on the Napo. But I met with no traces of them on the
upper waters, nor have any of these peoples anything in the
least resembling the Christian symbol in their designs. One
might expect to find so simple a figure as a cross reproduced
in native art if once known, but it certainly is not. On the
face of it we may here be dealing with a variant that has

tiger, " the tiger-folk . . . have a town of their own, where they live in
houses, and act in every respect like human beings " (Skeat, Malay Magic,
p. 157). In Perak tigers with human souls live in similar villages (Sir W. E.
Maxwell, J.R.A.S., No. vii, p. 22). The natives of Korinchi in Sumatra
are credited with the power to assume tiger form at will (Sir H. Clifford,
In Court of Kampong, pp. 65-6).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 223

passed from tribe to tribe, that has trickled through centuries,
to reappear now as a tribal tradition among peoples who
have never been in any direct contact with Christian in-
fluences. ^

As regards the rule of these supreme spirits over the
lesser spirits of good and evil they stand in the relation of
great chief. The good spirits are the spirits of trees that
bear edible fruits, of the trees from which arrows are made,
of the Coca erythroxylon, of the astringent properties of
various herbs, of the medicine-man's magic stones that may
be used as a prophylactic. These are not only the subjects
of the Good Spirit, they were made by him. He made all
the good things of the forest ; and he also made the rivers
and the skies. The BadSpirit placed the rocks in the rivers,
the poison in the mandiocca and in all noxious growths of
the bush. He made the liana to trip the unwary walker,
in short all things hurtful. These malevolent elements are
the bad spirits which, as the name in Witoto appears to
imply — the Taifeno, — are all subject to the Taife. As the
Good Spirit lives above the world so the Bad Spirit inhabits
the nether regions. The lesser spirits of evil go to him by
way of the earth holes,* for these are the passages to his
kingdom. The visit of the Good Spirit to earth as a corporate
being was a unique event never repeated, but the Bad Spirit
wanders with his myrmidons in the forest every night.
Sometimes he takes the form of a tiger, or other fierce
animal ; sometimes, as alternative to the tiger - lifting
theory, he resembles a man who can disappear at will. He
imitates the call of the hunter who has found game, or the
call of an animal to be hunted. He entices his victim by these
and similar contrivances to venture deeper and deeper into
the bush, until the wretched wanderer is utterly lost. Accord-

^ When Markham says of the Ticuna that " they fear the evil spirit,
and beUeve of the good one that, after death, he appears to eat fruit with
the departed and takes them to his home, this would seem to be a distinct
survival of missionary teaching, for these Indians were preached to between
1683 and 1728." Christian influence is also shown in their naming cere-
monies (Markham, p. 200),

* These holes in the heavy mould of the forest are caused by subsidences.
The Indians do not understand how they came to be, and explain the fact
by asserting they are the work of devils.

224 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

ing to tribal belief he is then destroyed, or spirited bodily
away. As has been said, the Bad Spirit never appears to
more than one at a time, and that one is usually spirited away,
so can give no account of the appearance, but as confirma-
tion of his real presence an Indian will sometimes whisper
the evil name as he points out the track of an abnormal-
sized tapir, which is curiously reminiscent to the European
of the cloven hoof of his own Devil.

The child - lifting story is a favourite one, and some
amount of corroborative evidence is forthcoming, for in the
awful loneliness of the bush a child naturally would become
half demented with fear and apprehension, and if ever
found again would be only too honestly willing to believe
he had been in the very real clutches of a very real devil.
The juvenile adventurer, answering in this way to leading
questions, gives to these simple people all the proof they
look for, and adds an immediate and local authenticity to
the accepted myth.

As there is no prayer to the Good Spirit, so there is no
supplication to the Bad. The medicine-man, as I have said,
invokes neither ; he appeals to neither ; but he attempts by
magic to force the Bad Spirit into quiescence, to discover
some more potent influence that shall make him powerless
to hurt, for unless coerced he is all-powerful.

Indefinite as these beliefs in a deity, good or evil, may be,
faith as to the after-life of the soul is possibly still vaguer.
Yet faith there certainly is, for the existence of the spirits of
the dead is an accepted fact, acknowledged in the Indian
ritual of burial.

Of spirits there are four kinds :

Permanent disembodied spirits, or the souls of the dead,
their ghosts.

Temporarily disembodied spirits, that is to say the souls
of living men, with power to send them forth out of their
material bodies.

Extra-mundane spirits, or those from other worlds.

Spirits of, or in, all natural objects, animate and in-
animate.

Any of these four classes of spirits are good or bad,

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 225

according as they are benevolently or malevolently in-
clined.

These Indians all believe in the temporary transmission
of the disembodied soul into the form of an animal, bird,
or reptile, not a regular and enforced series of such trans-
missions. This temporary transmission is for the pursuance
of a certain aim, perhaps for some indefinite length of
time. It appears that the spirit has the power of trans-
migration into other animal bodies, or back again to its
"extra-mundane form at will. Whether the animal is human,
whether, when so invaded, it incorporates two spirits and
becomes dual-souled, the Indian does not relate.

Man's soul in Indian belief is immortal, that is to say it
exists as long as it is felt to exist, whilst it continues to
appear in the dreams, in the thoughts of the survivors —
for so long, in fact, as it is remembered. Surely this is
immortality. A thing forgotten has never existed ; and,
per contra, the soul of a remembered being lives for ever.
The disembodied spirit or ghost lingers near the body after
death, in the woods near the house, or may even lodge in
the house itself. And then indefinitely, indeterminately,
after the body is buried the soul wanders farther afield, and
goes at length to the happy grounds of the Good Spirit.
Among some tribes this paradise is located above the skies,
among others it is away up some river, in the far and mythical
distance. The latter heaven is situated, as has already
been mentioned, upstream, and that, in this country where
the trend of the land is north-west and south-east, is also
approximately towards the setting sun.^

This land of the After-Life is a diminutive replica of the
ordinary world, but with evil things eliminated and joyful
things emphasised. All is on a lower scale, stunted forests
and pigmy game. This idea of a world in miniature approxi-
mates to the Malay conception of a spirit, the *' diminutive
but exact counterpart of its own embodiment," appertaining
to all animal, vegetable, and mineral bodies.^ The Indian

^ Among the Kuretu the soul is beUeved to hover near the body for
one day after death, and then to flit away, and finally to retire to a beautiful
house at the source of a mysterious river.

* Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 52.

226 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

miniature world would thus be, it seems, constructed of the
spirits of the material world. Colour is given to this theory
by the fact that individual possessions are buried with the
dead, and the Kuretu confess that this is done to prevent the
return of the soul in search of them. Were such properties
to pass into the possession of survivors the soul part of
each object, needed to represent it in the spiritual world,
would be detained in the material world. Burial sets it at
liberty, presumably, to accompany the soul part of its
owner, to take in the miniature world of the After-Life a
position corresponding in every detail to that which has
been held here on earth. The soul is pictured as the body,
in miniature also, visible or invisible at will, for these
people, like the majority of many of a higher culture, are
unable to imagine the soul except in some material guise. ^
Life in this enigmatic sphere has everything most prized in
this world. Hunting is fruitful always ; women are beauti-
ful and amenable, and the men are all the old familiar
friends of earth. The means of attainment to this desirable
state are so vague as to be unassignable. Good and evil
have no part in this scheme of heavenly philosophy. Broken
tabus, crimes against tribal jurisprudence, apparently bring
only temporary evil influences into play. Their punish-
ment is immediate and material. The happy land is open
to all the tribe with whom the Good Spirit is not vexed.
It is closed to all their enemies.

These lost souls, the spirits of those divinely damned,
must still frequent the earthly forests, or perhaps ally them-
selves with the spirits of evil and wander down the holes
in the earth to join the legions of the nether world.

I have heard, but not very definitely, of the Zaparo
belief that the good and brave souls will pass into birds of
beautiful plumage and feed on the most delicate fruits,
while the bad and cowardly are condemned to a future
existence in the guise of objectionable reptiles.^

This belief in, at least, a partial presence of the spirits of
the dead has possibly a bearing on the Indian dislike, to use

1 im Thurn, p. 343. Cf. also Skeat, Pagan Malay, p. 47.
2 See Simson, p. 175 ; Orton, p. 170.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 227

no stronger term, of mentioning his proper name. In the
case of some tribes, as has been noted, the name of a dead
man is given as a special honour to his greatest friend among
the survivors. With other tribes names of the Kving may,
and probably have once been those of persons now dead.
To mention such a name aloud might conceivably be to
attract the attention of the defunct erstwhile owner. ^
Therefore the name is only whispered, lest the spirit hearing
it might come and bother the speaker or the individual
named.2 There is, of course, the further reason that the
knowledge of a man's name gives an enemy power to
work him magical evil. But that is a point already dealt
with, except in so far as it argues some identity of the name
with the essential ego.

Not only do the Indians hold that a man's soul leaves
his body at death, but, further, they believe that it may do
so during life for a limited period. We have examples in
sleep, they argue, when the spirit is out of the body and
wanders about ; for in dreams, they say, the soul passes
through the mouth and has adventures in the outer world. ^
Dreams are, in fact, a portion of the man's real life. His
spirit has ventured forth and actually gone through the
experience his fancy paints. They realise, therefore, that
individuality is not in the body itself, but in the spirit that
inhabits the body. So if a man dreams he will not hesitate
to declare that he has done what he dreamed he was doing.

This is an example of involuntary disembodiment,
differing only from actual death in that it is of temporary

^ Cf. spencer and Gillen, p. 498.

2 This is so frequently the case among primitive peoples as hardly to
need amplifying. It is very general among the Indian races. See Andre,
p. 16 ; im Thurn, pp. 158, 220.

The Algonquin hold that the mention of a man's name offends his
personal deity (H. R. Schoolcraft, Oneota, pp. 331, 456 ; Indian Tribes of
the U.S. ii. 65). Australian natives only mention secret names in a
whisper (Spencer and Gillen, p. 139). See also note on names in Chap. XI.

^ This belief is also held by the Dyaks. " Their theory is that during
sleep the soul can hear, see, and understand, so what is dreamt is really
what the soul sees. When any one dreams of a distant land, they believe
that his soul has paid a flying visit to that land " (E. H. Gomes, Seventeen
Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, p. 161). Howitt writes of the South
Australian native : " While his body lies motionless, his spirit goes out of
him on its wanderings " (Howitt, pp. 410-11). See also Seligmann, p. 191.

228 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

duration. The soul has gone quietly, and will return. But
if the soul make a violent effort to escape that apparently
entails fatal consequences, for the Indians declare when
anybody sneezes it is the soul attempting to leave the
body and so cause death.

Voluntary disembodiment is believed to be possible in
certain favoured cases.^ This power is said to be possessed
by the medicine-man. He may free his spirit for magical
purposes, to fight unseen enemies on better terms, or for
the pursuit of some nefarious end. He may either remain
disembodied and invisible, or lurk for a time in the form of
some animal or object, a tree, a stone — where stones exist —
or even in the wind, the rain, or the river. The layman
Indian, though perfectly aware that he cannot of his own
accord and free-will loose his own soul from its fleshy trap-
pings to adventure in some foreign sort, is quite willing to
believe that other more fortunate mortals can accomplish
a feat to him so impossible. ^ No alternative explanation
offers to his mind to elucidate sundry mysterious happenings.

Quite distinct from these disembodied spirits are the
extra-mundane spirits, good and bad, that visit this
world and benefit or plague its inhabitants. These may
invade all natural objects, and, especially those evilly dis-
posed, will work unceasingly as agents for the supreme
powers to whom they owe allegiance. The bad spirits
haunt the darkness, they lurk in the recesses of the woods,
find a habitation in deep waters, and ride to destruction on
the floods. Danger from them threatens the Indian at
every turn. He can only be protected by the counter-
magic of his medicine-man. For fear of possible mischief
at their malicious hands no Indian will bathe at night
unless supported by the presence of companions. If he
lose his way in the forest it is due to their machinations ; ^

^ im Thurn, pp. 329, 343.

2 See im Thurn, p. 349. In Australia " one black fellow will often tell
you that he can and does do something magical, whilst all the time he is
perfectly well aware that he cannot, and yet firmly believes that some
other man can really do it " (Spencer and Gillen, p. 130).

3 Spruce relates a custom unknown to me practised by some tribes
when astray in the bush. The Indian when lost " names the Curupira,
and . . . twists a liana into a ring . . . throws it behind him . . .

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 229

and all that goes amiss in this by no means best-of-all-
possible worlds is at least in part engineered by them,
either at the suggestion of an enemy, or from their own
innate badness of heart.

Sickness again is a concrete entity. The Indian knows
not the microbe of science, but he recognises the existence
of a definitely hostile and active enemy in the presence of
disease. It is a spirit that wanders about, and at the
instigation of an enemy attacks individuals or tribes. The
attack is an actual invasion. Illness is due to the presence
in the flesh of the sick person of a foreign and inimical body.^

Before a thunderstorm the Indian believes that the air
is full of spirits, and the medicine-man is requisitioned
hterally " to clear the atmosphere." Thunder is the noise
of evil spirits making a turmoil and fuss ; whilst, according
to Bates, any inexplicable noises are made by another of
this destructive band, Curupira, the wild spirit of the woods.^
Thunder probably means that an enemy is sending sickness
to destroy the tribe. Therefore if a man is ill a flash of
lightning is quite sufficient to kill him through sheer fright
and shock.

These extra-mundane spirits may be said to be the
spirits of particularised evils, just as the Taife, the Navena,
the Jurupari, is the supreme spirit of all evil.^

With the final division of the spirit world is enwrapped
the total philosophy, the innermost meanings, in fact both
the whole and the origin of the Indian magico-religious
system. As men have souls — so truly felt in all — what is
more natural than that animals who move and breathe,
who live and die, who in many respects are more powerful,

follows the direction in which it has fallen" (Spruce, ii. 437-8). The
Bororo use a bull-roarer to drive the bad spirits off (W. A. Cook, The
Bororo Indians of Matto Grosso, p. 55).

^ The Caribs of the Pomeroon river actually attempt to counter the
attack of epidemic sickness by blocking the forest tracks " to stop the
passage of the spirits " (im Thurn, p. 356). In Guiana disease is regarded
as an evil spirit that prowls around (Brett, Indian Tribes of Guiana, p. 225).

- Bates, ii. 115.

' Jurupari is unknown south of the Japura. I can therefore give no
particulars or description from personal investigation and knowledge of
aught concerning this all powerful demoniac deity of the norther-o tribes.

230 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

more clever than men, should be assigned souls also by the
Indian's primitive reasoning. I say soul deliberately, for
Indian metaphysicians do not differentiate between soul
and spirit — they are one and indivisible, the miniature self
that may be seen in the pupil of a living eye but has vanished
from the eye of the dead. The question of souls other than
human is to the Indian too obvious to need elucidation ;
it admits, indeed, of no argument. There is a degree of
belief in a spirit, " a transcendental a;," ^ in all objects, even
those that are inanimate. What lives and grows must have
a spirit. What can interfere with, or affect man in any way
must possess some occult influence, some mysterious per-
sonality, that works for or against him, especially if that
object be in any degree unfamiliar or abnormal in appear-
ance. All these things, vegetable growths, rocks, are to the
Indian as we have repeatedly seen, active agents in the scheme
of things, and as such must also possess the intangible
ego, the spiritual essence, that is the soul of all earthly
forms. Evidence as to animistic beliefs among the Indians
is universal and overwhelming. A point of interest to the
psychologist comes in with the problem whether the belief
that undoubtedly exists is a belief in a duality of spirits in
one envelop, or whether, when the supernatural spirit, or
the disembodied spirit of a man, is transmitted into extra-
human forms, it being the stronger can oust the natural
spirit of the animal or object which is entered, and if so
what becomes of the finally evicted spirit. On this point I
have unfortunately no information to adduce.

While these beliefs are in the main general among all the
language -groups of the Issa-Japura regions, those of the
Boro-speaking tribes are the most intricate. They have
more definite notions of the spirit-world, a greater range of
theories as to the powers and extent of supernatural pheno-
mena. They fear the local devils more, take greater care
to appease them and to avoid rousing their hostility. This
is the natural result of the increased isolation secured by
the Boro tribes. They have been influenced less by the

* J. D. Pfleiderer, Die Genesis des My thus der indogermanischen Volker.
p. 48.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 231

outer world than the Witoto, for example. Both Boro and
Andoke tribes invariably keep aloof so far as may be from
any stranger.

Two of the forest denizens, the jaguar and the anaconda,
occupy outstanding positions in this connection with spirits
and magic to all the other beasts of the wild. Any animal
may be utilised by a spirit as a temporary abiding-place,
but the " tiger " and the great water-snake independently
of such spiritual possession are magical beasts. Tales gather
round them ; differential treatment is their portion. As
regards the jaguar this may be due to the fact that it is
seldom seen, and therefore the more mysterious in its evil
doings. It is also a dangerous beast, bold and fearless, and
to be dreaded for this if for no other reason. But the
anaconda is no such aggressive enemy of man. Yet, though
the Indian is an omnivorous eater, he will never kill either
the tiger or the anaconda for food.^

The anaconda is looked upon as an evil spirit. It is the
embodiment of the water spirit, the Yacu-mama,^ whose coils
may bar the passage of the streams, and the Indian goes in
terror of it, nor would he bathe in its vicinity, though, so far
as my experience went, the gigantic reptile will not attack
human beings unprovoked.^ The Yacu-mama, as the name
signifies, is the mother, the spirit of the streams. Among
some tribes, though not in my field of exploration, a relation-
ship is held to exist between this water-spirit and Jurupari,
so it is said.* It occupies the place in Amazonian folk-tales
filled by the sea-serpent of Europe ; while the manatee and
.the dolphin are the Amazonian mermaids. The cow-fish,
or manatee,^ is an object of wonder on the main stream, but
is unknown on the upper rivers. I have never seen one
nearer than the mouth of the Issa river. The dolphin also
is not found in the higher waters. On the lower rivers it

^ Elsewhere this appears not to be the case. See Bates, ii. 114.

^ yacM = water, mama = mother, Mai d'agoa (Tupi). Pachamama,
the earth, was worshipped in Peru, and the Inca also reverenced Mamac-
cocha, the sea mother (Joyce, pp. 154, 225).

3 Bates mentions a boy at Ega being devoured by one of these huge
creatures (Bates, ii. 1 13-15).

* Clough, p. 60.

^ For description see Wallace, pp. 127-8.

232 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

abounds, but, according to Bates, no Indian willingly kills
one ; and though dolphin fat makes good oil the belief is
current that when burnt in lamps it causes blindness.^

Tigers are not killed unless they be the aggressors, that
is to say they are never killed wantonly. The reason for
this is not cowardice, but fear of further aggression on the
part of the tiger family, or from the family of the medicine-
man who has assumed tiger form. Indians look upon
animals as having the same instincts as themselves, and
therefore capable of a prolonged blood-feud with humans
who may have wronged them. The tribesman is accordingly
anxious not to provoke war with the tiger tribe, but if
Indians are challenged by the death of one of their number
the case is altered, and they will immediately accept combat.
To hunt a jaguar without provocation merely for food or
for sport would be foolishly to kindle the animosity of the
whole tiger family, to rouse the violent enmity of the wander-
ing spirit domiciled for a time in the body of the hunted
beast. But when an Indian is killed, or a child lost — and
tigers are usually credited with the destruction of any child
missing from its home — the medicine-man is called upon,
and he proceeds to discover that it was a tribal enemy
working in disguise, probably the spirit of a hostile medicine-
man, intent to destroy the tribe by thus slaying potential
warriors or mothers of warriors. The tiger is in these
circumstances to be treated as a human enemy. A big
tribal hunt is organised, and if the quarry be secured a
feast of tiger-flesh follows, a feast of revenge, very similar
in detail to the anthropophagous orgies already described.^
At no other time does the Indian eat jaguar meat. The
tiger-skin becomes the property of the medicine-man, whose
magic has thus triumphed over the magic of a rival.

I have already noted that anything abnormal or un-
known is regarded with suspicious dread. My camera was
naturally endowed by Indian imagination with magical
properties, the most general idea among the Boro being that
it was an infernal machine, designed to steal the souls of

^ Bates, ii. 264.
2 For dance at tiger's " wake " see Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 169.

PLATE L.

GROUP Ul' WITUTO WOMEN BY DOUBLE -STEMMED PALM TREE

fa. .

GROUP OF WrrOTO MEN BY DOUBLL-STEMMED PALM TREE

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 233

those who were exposed to its baleful eye. In like manner
my eyeglass was supposed to give me power to see what
was in their hearts. When I first attempted to take photo-
graphs the natives were considerably agitated by my use of
a black cloth to envelop the evil thing ; and when my own
head went under it they had but one opinion, it also was
some strange magic-working that would enable me to read
their minds, their unprofessed intentions, and steal their souls
away ; or rather become master of their souls, and thus
make them amenable to my will at any time or in any place.
This was undoubtedly due in part to the fact that I was able
to reproduce the photograph. The Indian was brought face
to face with his naked soul, represented by the miniature
of himself in the photographic plate. One glance, and one
only, could he be induced to give. Never again would he
be privy to such magic. The Witoto women beheved that
I was working more material magic, and feared should they
suffer exposure to the camera that they would bear resultant
offspring to whom the camera — or the photographer —
would stand in paternal relation.

To cite another instance of the attitude of the Indian
towards the abnormal. A certain Witoto tribe have a tree
that they regard as an object almost of veneration. This
palm, as may be seen in the photographs, has a forked
stem, the trunk dividing into two some few feet above the
ground. I met with no more formulated sign of tree-
worship than this. Unquestionably, though they did not
worship — for as I have said, these Indians worship nothing
— the Witoto looked upon this tree as a thing to be respected,
prized, and if it were not meted proper treatment perchance
to be definitely feared.^

Finally, in addition to all these spirits good or evil, the
tribes south of the Japura are concerned with the sun and
the moon. These are venerated, the sun as a great and
sympathetic spirit, but not an incarnation of the great
Good Spirit, the moon as his wife, who is sent betimes by
the sun into the heavens at night to prevent the evil spirits
from depopulating the world. Of the stars these people

1 Cf. Darwin, p. 64.

234 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

seem to have the vaguest ideas, and only one Boro explained
to me that they were the souls of the chiefs and of the great
men of his tribe. ^

The Indian lives in a world of imagined dangers, over and
above the real ones that confront him at every turn. There
is possible menace in any place, dormant hostility in all
surrounding nature, active menace in the unfamiliar and
unknown. One might expect to find that he decked his
person and his belongings with an unlimited number of
charms, to protect against these battalions of evil. But
it is not so. The Tukano do, it is said, place certain green,
sweet-smelling herbs under the girdle as a love charm, to
attract the opposite sex, but nothing of this sort is known
south of the Japura, and charms, as the western world knows
them, hardly exist. I know of none beyond the medicine-
man's magical stones, the iguana-skin wristlets of the men
and the wooden ring placed on a child's arm, which appear
to partake of the nature of charms. Magic is to be met by
magic, not by material properties. The hostile evils that
threaten a man are only to be turned aside by the exercise
of more powerful anti-hostility on the part of his medicine-
man. But the Indian must go warily, observe signs and
portents, pay due heed to good and evil omens. He must,
for example, never shoot a poisonous snake with a blow-
pipe. Should he do so one poison will neutralise the other,
and destroy not only the poison on the arrow that wounded
the snake, but also all poison whatever that was in his
possession at the time. It is magic against magic.

As an instance of the Indian belief in omens, I remember
that once a small species of wild turkey alighted in a clear-
ing, and kept running round and round in circles. This was
taken by the Indians to mean that people were coming to
the maloka who might be either friends or enemies. This
gave rise to an excited discussion as to which would be the
more likely event of the two. It so happened that a party
of friendly Indians did arrive that same evening. Casement

^ "They consider the sun as the fountain-head of majesty and power
and even of beneficence, and as the abode of the Great Priests who have
passed to the spirit world and fear him " (W. A. Cook, op. cit. p. 55).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 235

relates how a large wood ibis descended among a crowd of
Witoto and Muenane in the compound at Occidente.^ A
Muenane wished to shoot the bird, and when persuaded to
leave it unmolested, expostulated that the ibis must have
been sent by their enemy the Karahone to bring disaster
upon them. As a rule, it strikes me, an enemy would
appear in a less kindly guise than that of an ibis. In my
case no attempt was made by the Okaina to interfere with
the bird in any way, in fact it was looked upon as a friend
who came to give due notice of approaching visitors, and
therefore was to be regarded with gratitude.

^ Occidente is on the left bank of the Igara Parana, a tributary of the
Issa.

CHAPTER XVIII

Darkness feared by Indians — Story-telling — Interminable length of tales —
Variants — Myths — Sun and moon — Deluge traditions — Tribal stories
— Amazons — White Indians tradition — Boro tribal tale — Amazonian
equivalents of many world tales — Beast stories — Animal character-
istics— Difference of animal characteristics in tale and tabu — No
totems — Indian hatred of animal world.

Darkness is full of mysterious horrors to the Indian, nor
can one wonder that he fills with imaginary demons the
weird and terrifying soHtudes of the bush by night. The
children are openly afraid of the dark, because of the tigers
that may then be prowling about, let alone less substantial
perils. Adults are not so frank with regard to their fears,
but as a matter of course all occupations cease at sun-down,
and every one makes for the sheltered warmth of the maloka.
There, by the flickering firelight, after the contents of the
family hot-pot have been discussed, long tales are told.
First one and then another takes up the burden of recital.
The chatter dies slowly, maybe it will linger on by the fire
of some verbose story-teller, till the chill of coming dawn
brings the sleepers from their hammocks to stir the smoulder-
ing embers into a blaze, and to gather round them waiting
for daybreak to dispel the evil agents of the night.

The tales are endlessly long, and so involved that they
are utterly imintelligible to the stranger until they have
been repeated many times. Then the drift of myth and
tradition, the meaning of fable and story, may be broadly
grasped. To win it comprehensively in detail is a matter
of time, patience, and intimate knowledge of the speaker's
tongue. Moreover, the tales have such numerous variations,
and are so grafted the one on to the other, according to the
momentary fancy of the narrators, that it is exceedingly
236

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 237

difficult to differentiate between a variant of a known story
and one that may in its essentials have been hitherto un-
heard.

*' It is," postulates Dr. Rivers, " not the especially
familiar and uniform which becomes the object of myth." ^
The mythopoeic influence of that which is seldom seen would
lead us to expect that among these Indians, sunk in " the
gloom of an eternal under- world of trees," ^ the heavenly
bodies would play a prominent part in tribal folk-tale and
myth. But so far as the stars are concerned this is not the
case at all ; ^ they seem to be ignored ; and, as regards
the sun and moon, it is the sun — contrary to usual tropical
custom — that is the most important, the moon — as with
more northern peoples — occupies the subordinate position
of wife. Her inconstant appearances are accounted for by
the suggestion mentioned in the previous chapter that she
is sent periodically by the sun her husband to drive away
the evil spirits of the night that await the stray or heedless
loiterers in the forest thickets. But this protective character
is denied to the moon by other tribes, and some South
American Indians will hide young infants lest the moon
should injure them.*

What I cannot but consider the most important of their
stories are the many myths that deal with the essential and
now familiar details of everyday life in connection with the
manihot utilissima and other fruits. The tale that follows
does not purport to be a literal translation of the myth as
related to me, or in my hearing. I have merely attempted
to put together, infinitely more concisely than any Indian
raconteur would ever dream of doing, the various details
of the local story and belief :

The Good Spirit when he came to earth showed the Indians a
manioc plant, and taught them how to extract the evil spirit's
influence.^

* Folklore Journal, 1912, p. 314.

* Casement, Contemporary Review, September 1912, p. 325.

^ Indians on the main river, however, according to Dr. Silva Coutinho,
" not only give names to a great number of celestial bodies [stars], but
they have legends about them " (Nery, p. 252).

* Markham, pp. 93-4 ^ Poison.

238 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

But he did not seem to have explained how the plant might
be reproduced.

The Indians searched for seeds, but found none.

They buried the young tuberous roots, but to no effect.

The Good Spirit was vexed with them ; that is why he did
not divulge the secret.

But long, long after, a virgin of the tribe, a daughter of the
chief, was found to be with child.

When questioned she repHed that long, long ago, when sick
to death, and under the medicine-man's magic,^ she wandered
far, far into the bush.

In the bush she found a beautiful manioc plant.

She was seduced by the tuberous root — some Indians say the
plant was metamorphosed into a beautiful young hunter — and
in due course she gave birth to a girl-child, who could both talk
and walk at birth.

This child took the women of the tribe to a beautiful plantation
of manioc, far, far up a certain river, and there the precocious
infant explained how to reproduce the plant with bits of the
stalks.

So to this day the chief food of all the peoples is cassava.

This story is utterly different from one Spruce heard
from more northern tribes at Sao Gabriel. The Barre story
has it that a bird discovered to the Indians the use of the
mandiocca, then a great and solitary tree. All the tribes
came to procure the roots, and when none were left carried
off branches ; hence the varieties of mandiocca now grown. ^

Deluge traditions are to be found among practically all
the tribes. I repeatedly asked questions on this point, and
in variably found, as other travellers had discovered previously
elsewhere,^ that the Indians would tell of a flood that drove
their fathers in the long, long ago to seek refuge in canoes,
for all the earth was under water. But though Mr. Joyce
considers it " strange how this deluge myth not only pervades
practically the whole of the Andean region of South America,
but extends also to many regions in the northern portion of

1 Narcotic.

2 Spruce, i. 314. In South America manihot is propagated by means of
slips or cuttings ; but in the Torres Straits the manihot sp. introduced by
the white man is grown from pieces of the old roots {Exped. Torres Straits,
iv. 149).

3 Clough, p. 212 ; Humboldt, ii. 182 ; Oakenfull, pp. 34-5 ; im Thurn,
P- 375 ; Joyce, p. 167.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 239

the Continent," it must be remembered that inundations
are frequent in these regions, and a great one probably
occurs every few decades. It would only be strange were
there no deluge myths. As Sir Everard im Thurn has so aptly
put it, when " the Indian tells in his simple language the
tradition of the highest flood which covered all the small
world known to him, and tells how the Indians escaped it,
it is not difficult to realise that the European hearer, theo-
logically prejudiced in favour of Noah, ... is apt to identify
the two stories." ^

With the possible exception of the Eldorado fable, there
is no South American legend that has excited so much
interest and speculation as the story of the warrior women
who in some mysterious forest fastness dwelt apart from men,
cultivated masculine attributes, and destroying the male
brought up the female progeny resultant from the yearly
exception to their celibate rule,^ to be women of the same
stern pattern as their extraordinary selves. Some writers
would make them a seventeenth century edition of the
modern suffragette, rebel against the " tyranny " of man —
and with certainly better reason for rebellion.^ The story
has been treated as mere Spanish romance,^ or a mistake
on the part of the invaders due to the custom of wearing
the hair long among m.any of the tribes.^ It has been taken
to be a deliberate fabrication on the part of Pizarro to
explain his failure, a temptation to which Sir Walter Raleigh
himself also fell victim. ^ Be it what it may, the tale was
told, the land known as the land of these women warriors,
and their name of Amazons bestowed upon the great river.
The tale of warrior women is, however, not confined to
the forests of the Amazon. One comes therewith to the
question of nomenclatory origin. The Baron de Santa-
Anna Nery devotes the first ten pages of his Land of the

^ im Thurn, p. 375.

- Humboldt, ii. 400-1 ; Chanoine Bcrnadino de Souza, Pava e Amazon ;
see Nery, pp. 8-9.

3 Humboldt, pp. 88, 400. ■* Spruce, ii. 561.

* Spruce wisely remarks on this point, " that the Spaniards had been
for two whole years among Indians who wore their hair long," and therefore
were not likely to mistake men for women (Spruce, ii. 459).

* Nery, p. 6.

240 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Amazons to this discussion* It seems to be a case of where
doctors disagree.^ But at least the tale, Asiatic, African,
or autochthonic, was localised here, and stories of feminine
prowess in the field continued to be quoted even in the
nineteenth century. Wallace himself mentions " tradi-
tions " said to be extant among the Indians themselves, of
"women without husbands." ^ This is no proof of the
local existence at any time of celibate women warriors.
The tradition may well exist, the only curiosity again would
be if it did not. For three centuries at least the invading
white man has talked of, and inquired for, a tribe of such
warrior women. It takes less than this to start the most
robust of folk-tales. A world agape like the Athenians of
old for some new thing, some tale to vary the oft-told stories,
does not require three centuries to adopt a novel romance.
The question " do such things exist ? '* is not asked long
before it ceases to be a question and becomes an assertion.
The more positive the assertion the greater will be the
wonder of the tale. When the wonder is sufficient it will
be established as a current myth. I do not therefore deny
that such a tale is told, or at least may be told, but for my
own part I never heard mention of it. Spruce speaks of
women assisting their men to repulse an attack on tribal
head-quarters,^ but no story of any woman fighting, or having
done so at any time, was ever told me. Moreover it should
not be forgotten in this connection that all weapons are
strictly tabu to women.

A story that is prevalent throughout South America tells
of a race of white Indians who sleep in the daytime, and only
go abroad at night. This tale was laughed at when repeated
at a recent meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, but
it is certainly in existence among the tribes,* and Crevaux

1 The French traveller rejects the d-, /jlu^Ss theory in favour of the d/ma
^(hv-r) — bound with a belt (Nery, p. 2).

2 Wallace, p. 343.

3 " I have myself seen that Indian women can fight. . . . The women
pile up heaps of stones, to serve as missiles for the men " (Spruce, ii. 457-8).
This, vide " stones," is not possible in the Issa-Japura district.

* Where tribal differentiation of colour is so marked as among these
people it is only natural that tales should be told of some mythical
" white " folk.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 241

states that the Ouayana will not go near one river, " a cause
des singuliers habitants qui habiteraient pres des sources . . .
des Indiens aux chevaux blonds qui dorment le jour et marchent
toute la nuit.^

Of tales as to the reputed origin of any tribe I have no
note, though when I cross-questioned a Boro tribe as to why
a certain district was almost uninhabited, they told me that
the reason was as follows :

Once a large tribe lived there, one of the most powerful of
all the tribes, and also one of the most numerous.

But long, long ago a chief, an Abihibya, of this tribe of the
Utiguene had a daughter, who was not only ugly but bird
rumped. The Chekobe, the medicine-man, gave her the name
of Komuine.2

When she grew older and was about five feet high,^ Komuine
went into the Bahe, the bush, to pick die, peppers, and berries,
but did not return.

The tribe then said that a wipa, a tiger, must have carried her
off. So a tribal hunt was instituted, and the bush searched for
the tiger ; but with no success, for when they were in the bush
they were attacked by a wicked tribe, which fell upon them and
killed them in great numbers.

So they returned with great sadness to the maloka.

Long, long after this Komuine reappeared in the Ha-a, the
great house of the tribe, and sang a solo, as is the custom among
the people when making a complaint. And this is the complaint
Komuine sang :

The Chief's daughter was lost in the forest.

And no one came to find the spoor ;

The branches were broken, the gwahake-ane, the leaves, were turned.

And no one came to find the spoor.

And where were my brothers, and the sons of the chief's brothers,^

That no one came to find the spoor ?

And while Komuine was dancing, it was noticed, to the disgust
of the tribe, that her bird rump was covered with nikwako, hair,
so the old women came and rubbed milk ^ upon her to remove
the unsightUness. But as they pulled and the unsightliness was

^ Crevaux, Voyages dans I'Amerique du Sud, p. 284.

^ Komuine — monkey (Boro).

' " So high " — demonstrated with the hand.

* These would be her natural protectors.

^ Rubber latex. See Depilation.

242 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

removed, more unsightliness came, and the hairier she grew.
When she was covered with leaves,^ she told her story :

" O my brothers ! When I was in the forest picking peppers a
komuine came to me, and taking me by force he deflowered me.
He took me with him into the bush to become his gwame, his
woman, and I gave birth to twins, and the second one was
buried, for even komuine have but one ehemene, one child. And
the child was hairy like a komuine, but had the face of a man.
And when I gave him milk the unsightliness came, and I ran
from the beasts and came to my own people."

The tribe then had a tobacco palaver, and because of the un-
sightliness, and the pollution,^ and the blood-feud with their
enemies which had cost the tribe so many warriors, it was decided
to destroy her.

And when she heard this she fled into the forest, and all the
komuine came and robbed the emiye, the plantation, and there
was no pika, manioc, and no kome, fruit.

And when the men of the Utiguene went out to hunt, the hanas
were like a net in the path, and so thick no one could pass. And
the tribe got thinner and thinner, and now to-day there is no
tribe of the Utiguene.^

The Amazonians have stories equivalent to many world-
wide tales, such as that of the lion and the mouse, only in
the forest version it is the jaguar who enacts the lion's part,
while the mouse is replaced by the ant, a liana serves instead
of a net to keep the great beast captive, and there are other
correspondingly local and numerous variations. The hare
and the tortoise fable has its counterpart in the story
of a race between the deer and the tortoise. The ramifica-
tions of this tale are most intricate. These stories are very
dissimilar in detail, so far as I could gather, from their
equivalents in the Old World, but in each case the same
principle is evolved : by a widely different route Old and
New reach eventually an identical goal.

^ To hide the unsightliness. ^ Of the chief's daughter,

^ This may be a folk-tale of the monkey-people stealing Indian women
for their mates. Cf. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 185 ; Clifford, Studies in Brown
Humanity, p. 243.

But it should not be overlooked that the Boro depile most carefully,
while the Andoke medicine-man does not depile at all, and this Andoke are
mortal foes of the Boro. The Karahone also are said not to depile, and
on this score would be regarded by the Boro as no better than brute beasts.
So this story may be a traditional account of the actual rape of a chief's
daughter by a hostile tribe, the Amazonian version of Helen and Troy.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 243

There is a marked prevalence of animal stories, tales —
and this is a point not to be overlooked — of the familiar
forest beasts, the birds and the reptiles of everyday life.
In these the birds and beasts have certain accepted char-
acteristics, they stand in the Indian folk-tales as representing
definite abstract ideas. Thus, as with us, the tortoise is
crafty and slow ; the ant and the bee are typical of industry.
The snake, that is to say the poisonous snake, in Amazonian
myth, as in Biblical story, represents evil, the evil eye.
The tapir stands for blindness and stupidity, while cunning
and deceit are represented by the dog. These bush dogs
approximate to our fox, and like Reynard have sharp up-
standing ears. They prowl round the maloka, and will
clear off anything they can find, even in close vicinity to
the house. The agouti, or capybava, takes with the Indian
the place held in African folk-tales by the hare. He is the
wittiest of beasts, can outmanoeuvre all the others, and is
the practical joker of the forest. The boa-constrictor, un-
like the poisonous snake, is not evil ; it exemplifies the
silent and the strong. The chattering parrot represents
irresponsibility ; it is a woman in disguise, and is certain
in Indian animal tales to be noisy and unreliable, and
probably will betray some secret. The peccary is for
constancy, the hawk for cunning, the sloth for laziness, and
the tiger for bravery. The monkey stands for tenacity of
life, which is probably due to the fact that owing to con-
striction of the muscles its hold on a branch does not relax
for some time after death.

These characteristics, however, do not appear to govern
in any way the question of food tabu concerning the re-
spective animals. On the contrary, the reasons alleged for
such tabu often appear to be, if anything, opposed to what
one would expect to find from the foregoing classification.
It is the material, not the abstract characteristic with which
the tabu deals. Moreover the tabu varies. Irrespective of
those connected with birth, at certain times of the year
there is a restriction, if it does not amount to an actual
prohibition or a tabu, with regard to eating heavy meats.
Simson assigns such avoidance to a belief current among

244 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Indians " that they partake of the nature of the animal they
devour." This is the case professedly for any tabu on foods
for women with child, but the reason given to me for general
restriction as regards, say, tapir flesh, was not that the eater
would be affected by any characteristic of the animal,
material or spiritual, but that the tapir meat if eaten at
forbidden seasons was very bad, that is to say unhealthy,
and would be the cause of certain skin diseases. It prob-
ably would be. Tiger meat, as already explained, is treated
much as human flesh is treated. Apart from the tiger, the
meat of larger game will, it is sometimes averred by other
tribes, make the eater gross and unwieldy.^ In connection
with this question of big game and food, Spruce refers to a
" superstition '' among the Uaupes Indians that may be a
possible survival of a totemic system, though he does not
advance the theory. *' How should we kill the stag ? "
they say, "he is our grandfather." ^ However this may
be with other language-groups, among those of the Issa-
Japura regions there is no trace of any totemic system,
except in so far as that boys and girls are named, as already
stated, after birds and flowers respectively. Animal names
are made use of occasionally, but only as names of contempt
and ridicule. These Indians look upon all animals as
enemies. To suggest that any animal is an ancestor
would be the direst of insults to people who so strenuously
try to avoid all likeness to the brute creation. One need
only refer to such customs as the killing of one of twins, or
depilation, to give the lie to any theory that would seek to
trace in Boro story — for example — for sign of suggested
descent from any eponymous animal. Relationship is
traced indeed only so far as memory serves ; that is to say
the oldest man may relate how he remembers his grand-
father telling who his grandfather's father was. Also there are
invariably tales of bygone chiefs, great warriors whose deeds
and characters are outstanding enough to be remembered.

^ Simson, p. i68.

2 Spruce, i. 332, im Thurn relates of the Arawak Indians that " each
family is descended — their fathers knew how, but they themselves have
forgotten — from its eponymous animal, bird, or plant " (im Thurn, pp. 184,
376).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 245

A story is told of a small fish that is to be found in these
rivers which may be fact or may be fable. All Indians say
that this fish is a parasite that will find its way into the
intestines of human beings when they are bathing. This
belief is noted elsewhere, and I merely refer to it here
because it is so universally credited without — so far as I
could ascertain — an atom of corroborative evidence.

CHAPTER XIX

Limitations of speech — Differences of dialect — Language-groups — Tribal
names — Difficulties of languages — Method of transliteration — Need
of a common medium — Ventral ejaculations — Construction — Pro-
nouns as suffix or prefix — Negatives — Gesture language — Numbers
and reckoning — Indefinite measure — Time — No writing, signs, nor
personal marks — Tribal calls — Drum-language code — Conversational
repetitions — Noisy talkers — Ventriloquists — Falsetto voice — Conversa-
tional etiquette.

In speech, as in everything else, the forest Indian is confined
within the narrow Hmits of his immediate surroundings.
Unhke the nomadic Indian of the plains, he passes his entire
existence in an area little larger than an English parish.
He has almost no commercial dealings with his neighbours.
The only fresh blood that penetrates his tribe is brought in
by the immature children taken prisoners in war. Like the
landscape his imagination owns no perspective, no horizon.
In the Amazonian bush an Indian may live and die without
ever having gazed upon a terrestrial object at the distance
of a mile. His mode of life, a community within a single
house, under a single roof, makes of household words a
dialect, and with the passing of a generation makes that
dialect a language.

In a society where each tribe is complete in itself and at
deadly enmity with all its neighbours, and where writing
is unknown, language must naturally undergo very rapid,
very definite change. Moreover Indians will not voluntarily
speak the language of other Indians. Thus the Amazonian
natives use no common tongue, and there is little in the
vocabularies so far collected to explain either the origin or
the relationship of the existing dialects. Tribes divided by
the breadth of a narrow river speak languages that are
246

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

247

mutually unintelligible. On the other hand, tribes distant
some hundreds of miles from each other possess a language
with a common root, which is fundamentally different from
those in use among all the intervening peoples.

So far as I could classify them, the language-groups of
this district fall under thirteen headings. By group 1
comprehend all tribes speaking a language with common
roots, though the dialects may vary considerably. These
groups, and the approximate number of Indians in each,
are as follows :

Witoto

. 15,000

Yuri ....

. unknown

Yahual,, ,
Pegua/Yah^^ •

. unknown

Andoke ....

. 10,000

Boro or Miranha .

. 15,000

Muenane ....

2,000

Nonuya ....

1,000

Resigero ....

1,000

Okaina or Dukaiya

2,000

Ka^ahone^

Umaua iKarahone

. 25,000

Saha J

Tukana '

Yahuna

Makuna

Opaina

. unknown

Bara

Kuretu

Menimehe^

Akaroa

■ ■ •

15,000

According to Koch-Griinberg all the tribes on the Tikie
speak the Tukano language, and as a result of segmentation
the Airi and Tihio speak the Dessana language.

Occasionally tribes, though speaking an entirely diverse
tongue, and members of a distinctly different language-
group, have some comprehension of the tongue spoken by a
neighbouring language-group. For instance, the Muenane
can understand Witoto, but they have no knowledge of
Boro, probably because they come more in contact with the
former people. The Menimehe know some words of Tupi,

248 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

or lingoa-geral, which is extraordinary, even though their
acquaintance with it is very sUght.

The tribal names in ordinary use are, as has been said,
bestowed by neighbouring tribes, and are merely nicknames.
It follows that the name by which a tribe becomes known
to a traveller is the name in use among the tribes in the
districts through which he passes, so that a visitor from
the north probably knows of a tribe by a different extra-
tribal name from that known to a new-comer from the south.
The difficulties of identification caused by this have already
been commented on in an earlier chapter, it is only necessary
to refer to them here in so far as the same difficulties beset
any attempt to learn the local dialects.

Of the thirteen languages tabulated above, one of the
most difficult, and the most guttural, is the tongue spoken
by the Resigero group of tribes. Nonuya, also guttural, is
perhaps equally difficult, whilst Andoke is possibly the
worst, as it is almost ventral. Okaina, though presenting
many difficulties, is easier to acquire than the first-named
three, and may be characterised as nasal, while Boro and
Witoto are neither nasal nor ventral nor impossibly guttural.
Muenane is somewhat akin to Boro, but is richer in words.
Menimehe approximates more to the speech of the Uaupes
River Indians, and it again is nasal.

The endeavour to reproduce the guttural expressions of
the Indian in Roman letters is rendered the more complex
by the uncertainty of his utterance and the aural variations
of his European interpreters. The same word phonetically
transcribed by an Englishman, a German, a Frenchman, and
a Spaniard bears little or no resemblance to a common
inspiration. Each European observer conveys to his
written word the error of his national idiosyncrasy of im-
pression and pronunciation.

The difficulty of a phonetic rendition of a foreign language
into English has long been apparent, and is one shared —
though in a lesser degree — by all Continental linguists. To
meet this difficulty the Germans have devised a system
almost Chinese in its intricacy, while the French seek to
reproduce such simple sounds as that of our English ** W "

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 249

by combinations of diphthongs. Many of these elaborate
phoneticisms have been adopted by Enghsh writers without
consideration of the Ungual limitations of their inventors,
or of the confusion induced in the mind of the student.

To simplify transliteration, though at the sacrifice of the
finer distinctions of the language, the orthographic system
of the Royal Geographical Society has been used in this
work,^ and the explanation of the system given in the
appendix with the Witoto and Boro vocabularies is taken
from the rules laid down by that Society and adopted by the
Royal Anthropological Institute.^ This system ordains that
an approximation to the sound should be aimed at only, as
any system which attempted to represent the more delicate
inflexions of sound and of accent would be so complicated
that it would merely defeat itself.

I attempted to make a vocabulary of Andoke words, but
the language is, as I have noted, so guttural, not to say
ventral, that it renders all attempts impossible without
some medium to work upon at the start, such as I had with
Boro and Witoto. In these two cases Brown's knowledge
of the latter, and even his very slight acquaintance with the
first, were of great use to me as a basis upon which to work.

As an example of the difficulty to be faced without some
common medium, I have asked a native, " What is this ? "
and touched my head or a stick, but could find no clue to
whether his answer referred to the thing touched or my
action in touching it. Only a long and tedious study can
overcome conundrums of this description, and when to
these is added the impossibility of conveying accurately by
written signs the sound as uttered, the attempt proved
beyond my powers and resources.

Mention has been made by one writer of the *' ' cluck ' of
satisfaction — common to all the tribes of the Provincia
Oriental." ^ I consider the sound emitted by the Issa-

^ The general principle is well known, and is now used both by the
authorities of the United States and of Great Britain. It consists in
giving to the vowels in native words their Italian significance, and to the
consonants that which they have in the English language.

2 Notes and Queries on Anthropology (1912), pp. 187-96.

' Simson, p. 94.

250 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Japura peoples as a sign of assent or pleasure is more
ventral than that described by Simson. It is approximately
Hurry ! like a grunted sigh of satisfaction. The exclamation
of surprise amongst all these peoples is very similar and may
be written Huh I This sound, lengthened considerably, is the
Witoto affirmative Huhhh. Huh! huh! huhh! as affirma-
tives are very freely used in conversation. The more an
Indian agrees with the speaker the more ventral do his
ejaculations become. The negative will not be used except
in direct answer to a question, for it is contrary to Indian
custom and etiquette to interrupt or contradict. The
absence of the affirmative Huh! is practically a contradic-
tion, on the ground of doing nothing being itself negative.
A similar idea is seen in the tobacco palaver, where the
dissentient signifies his disapproval by abstaining from
licking tobacco. Should an Indian, however, wish to give
an affirmative answer to a negative question, he will
then make use of the negative No, for to answer Yes in
Indian parlance would be to confirm the negative.

This brings us to the question of construction, and it is
at once apparent that in Witoto, for example, the con-
struction of a sentence tallies more with the construction of
the deaf and dumb mute's gesture language than with any-
thing else, that is to say it is the very antithesis of the
Chinese, or of our own. It may be said of the Indian, as
Tylor wrote of the deaf and dumb mute, that he " strings
together . . . the various ideas he wishes to connect, in
what appears to be the natural order in which they follow
one another in his mind." ^ For instance the Witoto say,
Benomo honne, literally " here put it " ; benomo ekkono, " here
open it you " ; eijo rie dotoenyino, " much fruit put in it not
do you " — " do not put much fruit into it."

It will be noted that the personal pronoun here has
become the suffix of the verb. This is the general rule, as
in dinitikwe, " I shall carry it " ; a chimitekwe, " I am going to
see " ; ona dueruetckwe, " I want you." But this rule is not in-
variable, as we find kwe mona, " I am unable" ; ke hanyete, "I
do not understand," with the pronoun kwe or ke placed, as we

* Tylor, p. 25.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 251

should put the "I" before the verb; nor is the variation caused
by the negative, as " I do not want you " is ona dueruenetckwe.
In this instance the position of the personal pronoun kwe
is probably determined by the objective ona, which structur-
ally must precede, otherwise the meaning of the phrase
would be inverted and become " You do not want me/' A
pronoun is also used as a prefix to a noun to denote pos-
session, as tano, " cassava," ometano, " your cassava/'
According to Koch-Griinberg the suffix make indicates some
other place, or thing; it occurs in baimake, "other "; naimake
" them " ; but I am not aware that it acts as a definitely
differentiating suffix in these or any other case.

In Witoto nyete as a suffix negatives what proceeds it, the
literal meaning of the word inyete — a compound of ite =
are — being the equivalent of the French il yiy en a pas} As
examples of its use we getfigora, " good," figonyete, " bad " ;
huchite, ''twisted," huchinyete, "straight," that is to say
" not twisted/' The Boro negative is ne, as for instance in
imine, " good," nemine, " bad," i.e. " not good/'

Repetition of a word literally doubles its meaning, as in the
Witoto nana, " all," and the Boro paa-paa, " low-low," that
is to say, "lower"; kame-kame, "high-high," i.e. "higher/'

I have said that the principle of construction in both
Boro and Witoto is that of the mute's gesture language, but
gesture language actually is almost unknown, non-existent,
among all these tribes. The hand is pointed to show
direction, or to identify a person or object. The Indian
beckons with one hand, but its movement is downward, not
upward as with us. There is also a recognised sign to ex-
press desire for sexual intercourse. This is a mere jest, a
ribald suggestion, as with boys of a certain age among our
lower classes. The right elbow is grasped with the left
hand, the elbow being so flexed as to allow the hand to point
upwards. It is, in fact, the letter Z of the dumb alphabet.

Fingers and toes are used for reckoning, and are the more
needed in that the Indians' knowledge of numbers is of the

^ Koch-Griinberg transliterates it as ingetd, or ingitd ; and gives mard
for good, maringetd, marinyetd, bad ; fariti, fat ; far^ ingetd, thin [Die
Uitdto Indianer, pp. lo-ii).

252 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

slightest. But few can reckon beyond five, though I once
found a senior wrangler who counted seventeen, by the
aid of all his fingers, all the toes of one foot, and two of the
other. The remaining three toes he covered over, to show
that they were not required for the total sum. If an
Indian wished to enumerate anything over ten he would
place both hands to his head and say, " Like the hairs of
my head." ^ In Boro I could only learn of four numerals,
Uamie, ''one-half"; tsanere, or tsape, "one"; mieke, ''two";
sause, "five." These in combination give tsape-mieke,
"three" ; mieke-mieke, "four." The Witoto numerals are
dahe, " one " ; mena, " two " ; dahe-amene — equivalent to the
Boro tsape-mieke, — " three "; menahere, " four " ; dapekwiro,
" five " — that is one hand ; nagapekwiro, " six."

It makes absolutely no difference to the value whether
you say tsape-mieke or mieke-tsape ; dahe-amene or mena-
dahe.

For measures these tribes have nothing more definite
than a handful, a foot- or finger-length, and of weights they
possess no knowledge whatever, nor, so far as I am aware
from their customs or their language, is there any conscious-
ness of more possible or desirably-accurate definition.

To express a length of time other than the merely im-
mediate past, present, and future, the Indian makes
use of what conveys to him an indefinable idea, " As long
as the hairs of my head." This is similar to his notion of
expressing any large number. He reckons time by the
moon to the extent of saying, " When the moon is small,"
or, pointing to it, " As it is now," but I never heard any-
thing like " so many moons," or an equivalent value in a
word. In fact, time to the Boro, so far as I am aware, is dis-
tinguished by only _/>^^ay^, "to-morrow," aiupe, " yesterday."
The Witoto will speak of beiruito, " to-day " ; wiremoni, to-
morrow " ; dawire, " the day after to-morrow," or nawire,
" yesterday " ; beinawire, " the day before yesterday," or
beinawife, " the night before last."

^ Orton stated that the Zaparo " have no words for numbers above
three, but show their fingers " (Orton, p. 170). Simson gives words for four
and five as in use among those tribes, and after that manunu, meaning
** many-many " (Simson, p. 179).

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 253

There is, as I have already mentioned, no writing, not
even the most primitive picture-writing. The Indian makes
use of no signs as aids to memory ; and the only recognised
symbol that I met with — other than such symbolic prac-
tices as the presentation of wood and thatch by the bride-
groom to his parents-in-law — was the tobacco folded in a
strip of palm leaf that is the regular invitation card of
North -Western Amazonia when festivities are toward.
Neither individuals nor families have any recognised name-
marks — such as a peculiar notch or number of notches — to
distinguish personal property. It must be remembered that
in the small private habitations in the bush a man and his
wife and children are more or less isolated, and that in the
great tribal house the family community have most of their
possessions in common. It is difficult with so communal
a people to know what may be looked upon as general
property, and what as individual, with the exception of
personal ornaments. Indians recognise their property only
by differential qualities, certain ornamentation, ways of
binding or lashing, patterns in basketry, colouring — and
division of colours — on pottery ; and these differences are
known and recognised by others, as well as by the actual
owners.

Each tribe has its peculiar call or signal, which I believe
is altered occasionally as a precautionary measure. This
may be a whistle, or the imitation of the cry of bird or beast.
Then there is the so-called drum-language used in signal-
ling, and already noted in a previous chapter, which I
certainly believe to be some sort of code. Brown's assertion
that the sound of the word is made with the drum, and the
Indians' description of making the words is, I take it,
merely the untaught intelligence striving to explain how
an onomatopoeic language — such as Boro and Witoto to
some extent certainly are — can be further conventionalised
to a scope even more circumscribed than the ordinary
monotone of the Indian's speaking voice.

Not only is the Indian voice monotonous, but the con-
versation is rendered yet duller by the invariable repetition
of the last words of a sentence. This is particularly the case

254 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

with the Tuyuka, where conversation has a definitely cere-
monial form. For instance, if a man leaves a party to
bathe, he says, ''I go to take a bath," and the company
present reply in chorus, " You go to take a bath."
On his return the formula runs, " I have taken a bath,"
and the confirmative echo follows, *' Yes, you have
taken a bath." This endless repetition, as was noticed
with regard to songs, is characteristic of all Indians.

In quality their voices are strident and rasping, and are
always raised in conversation and grow higher with increased
excitement. No Indian speaks confidentially, he shouts ; and
unless something very sacred and secret is under discussion
the conversation in an Indian house can be heard a mile
away. In the forest the mass of vegetation above appears
to act as a sounding-board, and so to lengthen the distance
that sound is carried, not, as one might think, to stifle it.
But independent of this the Indians possess extraordinary
power of throwing the voice, a sort of ventral whisper ; and
all, to some extent, are ventriloquists. Even semi-civilised
Indians of Brazil, who have lost much of the cunning
of their brethren, the " Wild Indians " of the forest, have
this power.

The Indian is as fond of speaking and singing in a high-
pitched voice interspersed with ventral grunts as a Chinese
coolie, and this predilection, as regards the falsetto voice,
is greatest on the part of the women, whose voices are
always higher than the men's.

When an Indian talks he sits down, no conversation is
ever carried on when the speakers are standing unless it be
a serious difference of opinion is under discussion ; nor,
when he speaks, does the Indian look at the person ad-
dressed, any more than the latter watches the speaker.
Both look at some outside objects. This is the atti-
tude also of the Indian when addressing more than one
listener, so that he appears to be talking to some one
not visibly present.

CHAPTER XX

No individualism — Efiect of isolation — Extreme reserve of Indians — Cruelty
— Dislike and fear of strangers — Indian hospitality — Treachery — Theft
punished by death — Dualism of ethics — Vengeance — Moral sense
and custom — Modesty of the women — Jealousy of the men — Hatred of
white man — Ingratitude — Curiosity — Indians retarded but not de-
generate— No evidence of reversion from higher culture — A neolithic
people — Conclusion .

We find in all savage races, peoples of the lower cultures,
that there is no differentiation of individualism, that is to
say all members of the race or group are at approximately
the same level. This is what we know as a *' low state of
civilisation." It has been suggested that such dead level,
the lack of all initiative, of progress in short, is due to
the absence of religion, of ideals or gods, through which
true enthusiasm only is engendered. A religious ideal un-
doubtedly tends to progress, and with the exception of
patriotism — which, after all, is a religious ideal — is the main
influence. It is a case of cause and effect, however, for the
effect of environment must not be overlooked. Local con-
ditions initiate progress and may cause enthusiasm for an
ideal, the effect and, at the same time, the potent accelerator
of such progression.

It is an extraordinary but undeniable fact that the
Indian is individually wise yet racially foolish, individually
intelligent, racially inept. This may be due entirely to
geographical control, to the peculiar characteristics of the
social environment. The greatest incitement to human
progress, intercommunication, is denied in the Amazon
wilds. True, there are the rivers, but the value of rivers and
waterways in this respect is negatived by custom. Existing
conditions make this necessary, for in isolation alone is
protection to be found for any tribe.
255

256 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

We find, then, the group system, where the community is
everything, the individual nothing, blocking the path of pro-
gressive evolution to a very great extent among the forest
Indians of South America, as it has done among the native
tribes of Australia. The individual can gain nothing for
himself, he can only work for the greater glory of the group,
and has therefore no intimate incentive for strenuous
advancement. A tribe has little or no opportunity for
progress when it consists of but a few hundred members,
and is practically isolated from all other tribes, except for
the hardly intellectual shock of war, or perhaps the occasional
intrusion of some wandering barterer, a member of possibly
a hostile tribe, who is tolerated on account of the necessary
articles which he brings, things that cannot be manufactured
by the tribes he visits.

The Indian is hedged about with a constricting environ-
ment against which he can scarcely be said to battle.
He accepts with the resignation of the East, and knows
nothing of the restless rebellion that makes for Western
amelioration and progress. What the Indian lacks is not
intelligence but character, that is to say will - power.
The Indian is brave, he endures pain and privation with
the greatest stoicism, he can be doggedly obstinate, but
only in exceptional cases can he rise above his fellows
to anything approaching individuality and strength of
mind.

The dominant characteristic of the Indian is a profound
and nervous reserve. The extreme nervousness of his
manner is due undoubtedly to wholesale indulgence in coca.
It affects all the conditions of social intercourse. It makes
the Indian character extraordinarily negative. Enthusiasm
is to seek in Amazonia. The Indian never expresses violent
joy or fear. A shock is more likely to raise a laugh from
him than a cry. He will submit to much, he will bear
greatly, but it is easy to provoke a laugh against even
a fellow-tribesman. An Indian will invariably laugh at
another's discomfiture. But with a stranger all Indians are
taciturn, and they will have little or nothing to say to him
if he be a white man.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 257

Outside the narrow limit of the tribe the Indians possess
no altruistic feelings, no sympathy with strangers. They
look upon every man as a definite, or at least a possible
enemy. The gentle Indian, peaceful and loving, is a fiction
of perfervid imaginations only. The Indians are innately
cruel. They certainly have no true kindliness for animals ;
every animal is a foe, as I have elsewhere noted. The Maku
children are especially cruel to them, but cruelty to the
dumb brute is imiversal among the tribes. On the other
hand, intra-tribal hospitality is without end. I have given
a single biscuit to a boy and seen him religiously divide it
into twenty microscopic pieces for all and sundry. But they
are quite improvident so far as the morrow is concerned. If
a family is threatened with famine the whole party will walk
over to another house, make themselves at home, eat and
drink without the slightest hesitation, without even craving
invitation so to do. The reason is obvious. The host of
to-day may be the guest of to-morrow. I have seen, how-
ever, a hunting party doing their best to eat a whole tapir,
with the evident desire to finish the feast before the arrival
of another, and possibly a less successful, hunting party.
Otherwise division of spoil is absolutely equal, except that
the chief by right has the greatest share. ^

The Indian is not always a hospitable host where other 1
than his own tribe or language-group is concerned. Vague ^
tales have penetrated even to his well-guarded ignorance of
the customs of the Rubber Belt, of the servitude of his
fellows. He hates the white man and mistrusts him. The
Andoke are invariably surly in their attitude towards him.
There are tribes — the Karahone, for instance, on the northern
bank of the Japura — who refuse all attempts whatsoever at
intercourse. They will neither receive presents nor am-
bassadors. If the explorer persist despite the rejection of
his overtures he will find poisoned stakes simk in his path.
He will be harassed in all his doings. When at length he
attains to the tribal head-quarters he will find a house indeed,
and perhaps food, but no warriors, no women, no children.
The fire will still be burning within the maloka, but the
tribe has vanished, leaving no track, no sign of its where-

258 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

abouts. The Indian's ** Not at home '* is no mere social
euphemism. It is a demonstrated fact.

When the stranger finds such silent evidence of the tribal
attitude toward his presence, it behoves him to take steps
very promptly for his protection. He may be certain that
the natives, though hidden, are covering his every action. If
he, or one of his party, show himself, a flight of poisoned
arrows whistles forth from the bush. Then follows a
siege that tries the nerves of the stoutest campaigner. The
hidden enemy, the noiseless weapons, menace from every
tree. It is almost certain death to stop in the open. Within
the house is a shelter little more dependable. The natives
pierce the thatch with fire- javelins, with tiny spears bearing
blazing tufts of hemp or cotton, and sooner or later the great
structure will catch fire. There follows the imposed rush
into the clearing, and the quick butchery by that unseen
but ever-watchful enemy.

Later comes the dance of triumph and the feast of
the victims.

Against such an enemy, in such a situation, the resources
of civilisation are of little avail. A wretched little dart
steeped in the tribal war-poison may be fragile as a reed, but
fired from the near shelter of the bush it is as effective as a
Mauser bullet.

When travelling among these Indians it is necessary in
order to gain their respect to do as they do. I have em-
phasised this throughout. The traveller must cross the most
nerve-racking bridge without help, he may have no hammock
in which to be carried. This is a striking contrast to what
I have met with in parts of Africa, where to walk is taken
as a sign of unimportance ; the man who does so cannot in
native eyes be what they would call in India a '* burra
sahib." I have also noted that the student of life must
conform in all things that may be with the customs and
habits of the tribesmen with whom he wishes to associate.
In a land where pia is the supreme law, deviation from
custom can be only regarded as criminal.

When an Indian house is reached the chief comes out
with a party of his warriors. The burden of proof rests

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 259

with the invading European. He advances to the chief
with his interpreter, and must make declaration of friend-
ship. If the explanation of his appearance be accepted,
the Indian laughs and may slap his visitor vigorously on the
back, after the usual custom of the native in South America
welcoming the stranger. Together they then proceed to the
house, and the chief calls his woman and orders food to be
provided for the strangers. The white man on his part
tenders whatever he has brought by way of presents — beads,
gun-cartridges, a small-tooth comb, or a knife.

When the evening meal is finished the chief stalks into
the centre of the maloka, which has hitherto been untenanted,
like the arena of a circus before the performance begins.
A great fire is made up, and about it the men of the tribe
squat on their haimches. The chief explains to them the
presence of the stranger, and takes counsel on the question
of his entertainment. As he describes his intentions he falls
into a rhythmic chant, and his followers assent with deep-
chested Hukh ! All this is a lengthy business, but the tribe
eventually arrive at a common decision. The chief then
bends forward to the tribal tobacco pot that has been placed
midway among the group. Into this he solemnly dips a
tobacco stick, and conveys a little of the liquid to his tongue.
Man after man bends forward round the circle, and each in
turn dips his splinter of wood into the pot to notify his assent.
It is a sign of tribal agreement as binding as the Lord
Chancellor's seal on a document of state. With it the
tobacco palaver is concluded and the Indians seek their
hammocks for sleep.

The Indian's treachery is proverbial. I may mention on
this point two sayings — there are hundreds similar — which
illumine this phase of the character and customs of the
tribesmen. The Andoke says, relevant to the Karahone,
** If your spirit wander (sleep) in the hammock of a
monkey or beast Indian, it wanders always." ^ The meaning
is this, the Karahone appear to have a real and exact know-
ledge of virulent poisons. It is related that they can

^ The reference to monkey or beast is due to the fact that the Karahone
do not depilate all body and face hair.

26o THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS J

saturate a hammock with some narcotic which the victim
does not discover, thus ensuring his death or destruction.
They also burn fires under the hammock of those they wish
to remove from the world, and stifle them with a narcotic
smoke.

Another proverbial remark runs : " If a Karahone give
you a pineapple, beware." This refers to the Karahone's
playful habit of presenting poisoned pines. The Boro have
a similar saying : " Take a pine from an enemy and die,"
but this is due to the recognition of the fact that an Indian
is never so dangerous as when simulating hospitality that
is treacherous in the extreme.

Perhaps the Indian trait that soonest strikes, and most
indelibly impresses the observer, is his charming altruism
in the community of the family or tribal group, his wild
misanthropy towards other tribes. His ambition is to live
undisturbed with his family in the deep recesses of the
forest. He asks only to be let alone.

In a region where land is free for all to take who will,
and personal belongings are few — and invariably buried
with the owner — laws of inheritance there can be none. But
the law of possession is strict, and the penalty is death.
There can be no toleration of theft, as on account of the
publicity in which the Indians live it may be effected with
such ease. The punishment for theft has therefore to be
drastic, final. The victim may kill the thief. I was told
that this is done by hacking at the culprit's head with a
wooden sword or a stone axe. This savours of ceremonial
sacrifice. But though to steal from a member of the tribe
is to steal from the whole community and therefore a crime,
there is no bar against stealing from the stranger. They
will do so unblushingly. I remember once missing a pair
of scissors. On searching I discovered a Witoto woman
stealing them. But she swore she had never put them in
her basket, though they were found there !

There is very distinctly a dualism of ethics, one law for
the tribe, and another law for all who are not members of it.
To kill a fellow- tribesman is to injure the tribe by destroying
one of its vmits. Sin against the individual is of no import-

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 261

ance except in so far as injury to any one person is injury
to a unit of the tribe, to be punished by the law of retaliation
in kind if the offender be of another tribe. Sin against
another tribe is no sin except in the eyes of the tribe sinned
against ; then for its members it becomes not the sin of the
individual doer but of his whole community. It is the
tribe and not the individual that would be held guilty for
any offence committed by one of its members. For instance
if a Boro killed a Menimehe, vengeance may be taken by
the dead man's tribe on all or any of the members of the
Boro tribe concerned.

Vengeance is primarily a matter for the individual princi-
pally affected. A man considers it a disgraceful thing not
to be able to avenge himself, and will therefore never
apply to the chief for tribal help. On the other hand the
chief and the tribe will sometimes take up a quarrel and
make it their own. This is a common custom amongst small
communities, an affront to any one of the community being
a personal attack upon every other member, though it is not
necessarily avenged by all unless the affronted one is him-
self unable to compass revenge.

Members of a tribe sometimes quarrel, though rarely, but
at times a fight commences in which others join, till eventu-
ally it becomes a "set to " between two families. On the
whole I am inclined to say that the natives of the Amazons
are the least quarrelsome people I have ever met.

It would be wrong to state that these people have no
moral sense, because a slavish adherence to custom in itself
is moral. That is to say they possess a moral code. How-
ever that does not entail any right or wrong as we know it,
but only pia, that is " what our forefathers thought and did,"
in other words tribal usage, which may be translated by
what we call ** good form." There are no words in the
Indian tongues for virtue, justice, humanity, vice, injustice or
cruelty. These are unknown to the tribes who differentiate
only with the equivalents for good and bad. Points like
this earmark the ethics of a people. The curious negative
character I have already noted is carried out here also.
Again there is recognition of the moral law of conjugal

262 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

fidelity in that there is definite punishment for infidehty —
the ordeal of the stinging ants. Punishment infers trans-
gression of a law or code. It is not sufficient to say that in
this case it is due to the extraordinary jealousy of Indian
husbands, for the penalty is imposed on both husband and
wife, the retribution is due to public opinion not personal
revenge. Before marriage the men take the tribal prosti-
tutes— the Maku girls and to some extent the imattached
women — openly, but after marriage this is not the case.
Incest is unknown among them, and in that term I include
promiscuous intercourse among any of the members of a
household. The antipathy to this lies only between those
living under the same roof, it does not extend to consan-
guineous individuals who are members of different house-
holds.

The women are extraordinarily modest in their behaviour.
Their eyes rarely leave the groimd in the presence of a
stranger. I had one woman in my party who never spoke
to me, or even looked in my direction, the whole time we were
together. After much dancing, I have seen the women,
succumbing to dance stimulation, show their preference for
certain men in the dancing party by placing their hands on
their shoulders, an act in obedience to the impulse of the
moment. In fact after dancing for a length of time they
become comparatively boisterous and irresponsible. But
even at the height of excitement there is nothing markedly
rude in the dance, when one allows for the fact that sexual
suggestion is not to be included in that category in Indian
ethics. Even on this point they have their limitations, for
Koch-Grunberg relates that when talking to some Desana
Indians on sexual subjects, the conversation was stopped by
them till the women were sent away. After their departure
the men talked freely and broadly. This I did not remark
among the Indians I visited, in fact sexual matters appeared
to be discussed freely and lewdly by both sexes, and even by
young children.

The Indians under the range of discussion most certainly
possess the greatest racial antipathy towards the white man.
This is noticeable among the women especially, for they will

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 263

never admit to their own people if they have ever had any
deaHng or connection whatsoever with the white man.

Gratitude among Indians is unknown — at least to me.
Take this example : I had Indians who had been slaves,
who had elected to come with me, or at least had evinced
no repugnance at the idea, with whom I had shared all the
food at my disposal, stinting myself often to ensure their
gratitude — as I thought — caring for them, doctoring and
curing them when sick, till eventually I became fond of
them. But on the main river at the first opportunity they
ran, apparently at the suggestion of one of their own tribe,
the Peon of a rubber - gatherer. What arguments were
used I know not — perhaps that I was a devil, that my real
motive was to fatten them for cuHnary purposes. The
fact remains they left me, to all appearances, willingly.

This stealing of Indians is a well-recognised source of
amusement on the Amazon river, and the victims of such
loss — who of course perpetrate the same sort of outrage on
others directly opportunity permits — are so indolent, so
lethargic, that they will not cross a river to recover the
stolen. The custom is the more prevalent on account of
the character of the Indian. He will always leave one
white man to go to another. He is always on the alert to
rim, to go elsewhere. This is true of Indians enslaved by
other Indians, to a limited extent. Unless they are well
treated and identified with the tribe they will run, only to
be again enslaved by others, or put to death. The matter
is hard to explain. It simply is in the blood. It is Pia,
as Brown remarked. It is their custom. They do it
" just for so.'*

Another point about the Indian is that he must always
be kept up to the work in hand. The women toil unceas-
ingly, but the men are only too ready to seize any excuse
to cry off a job. They spend their time mainly in mooning
around. Obtaining food is their chief occupation. But
when an Indian is kept up to his work he works hard and
well.

Though the Indian attitude at first is invariably stoical
they are not lacking in inquisitiveness. Their curiosity was

264 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

enormously aroused by many of my possessions. It is hard
to say what will evoke their wonder. I have seen an Indian
evince no interest in a steam-boat, but show the most ex-
traordinary interest in my jackboots, and be greatly occupied
with the problem of how I got into them. A walking-stick
was an unanswerable conundrum to them, it never occurred
to their minds that I could use it as an assistance in walking.
My eyeglass, my camera, were mysterious devils that could
read into their hearts and filch their souls, as I have already
noted. My watch, with an alarm to it, struck consternation
to their simple minds. My phonograph, that reproduced
records of dancing which were repeated on reversal, raised
shouts of wonder. An Indian in a down-river town saw
nothing to excite him in a tram, and took a ride thereon
quite unconcernedly, but the women's hats were exciting,
and at the sight of a man on a bicycle his astonishment
was unbounded : it was " man on spider-web ! " Horses
are unknown in these regions, and there is no possibility of
the majority of the Indians seeing any one on horseback. I
could only get a mule as far as the first big river, but beyond
the bush became too dense. Otherwise I fancy their amaze-
ment would equal that of the Australian natives when they
saw the beast come in two on the man dismounting. ^
y"'^ Decadent the Indian may be, and thanks mainly to his
N inveterate cocainism he undoubtedly is, but that he is the
J degraded descendant of a higher race is a theory that I beg
(^ leave to doubt entirely. According to von Martins the
standard of ethics rises or falls with the increase or decrease
of a tribe. He based his theory on the fact that the most
corrupt Coeruna and Nainuma were nearly extinct. It is
possible to argue that they were dying out because they
were corrupt, ^ rather than they were corrupt because they
were dying out. Sir Roger Casement appears to have
accepted the theory expounded in Vergangenheit und
Zukunft der amerikanischen Menschheit. But Tylor re-
marks, *' I cannot but think that Dr. Martins' deduction is
the absolute reverse of the truth." Certainly the theory

^ Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, ii.
2 Cf. Ratzel, ii. 125.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 265

of the Indians' regression is, I consider, entirely erroneous.
I see nothing to suggest it. On the contrary it appeared
to me that in spite of the awful handicap of their environ-
ment, these tribes were slowly evolving a higher standard
of culture. There is no evidence of their having reverted
from a higher culture. A people who once knew how to
produce fire by friction do not easily forget that method to
rely on the clumsy processes of fire-carrying. Men who have
smoked tobacco are not very likely to content themselves,
nor would their offspring be contented, with merely sucking
it. People who knew the simple method of preparing yam
with a spindle would only revert in exceptional cases to the
slow and even painful process of rolling fibre on the naked
thigh, and that in a land where cotton is abundantly to
hand on every side. The tedious method of plaiting and
t5mig by hand would hardly, one imagines, be substituted
for weaving. A race that has once worked metal and
relapsed to the use of stone without even more exceptional
and definite reasons for that relapse, is no more likely in fact
than it is recorded — so far as I am aware — in history.

Examples are known of peoples who have forgotten one
useful art, for material and utilitarian, or social, or magico-
religious reasons ; but a people who have allowed some half
dozen to disappear is unknown to me. Yet these Indians
carry fire, lick tobacco, roll fibre on the thigh, and though
they make use of an embryo loom — the two posts between
which their hammocks are plaited — ^have not appreciated
its potentialities. Some of the Amazon tribes,^ though
surrounded by canoe-building peoples, can only make rafts ;
the secret of the dug-out, if ever known to them,2 has been
forgotten. But it is possible that an isolated section of the
original canoe-builders — as we have seen these tribes to-
day are all isolated sections — may for some reason have had
no need to construct a canoe for such lengths of time that
the method of fire-heating and burning, especially of forcing
the hot trunk open, had through disuse been at least partially

* For example the Maca, the Guaharibo, and the Guahibo (Spruce, i. 477) .
2 Vide Chap. VI. p. loi, where it is stated that the dug-out is not the
autochthonic boat of this country.

266 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

forgotten.^ Presume that they failed in their attempt to
build one for some reason, 2 and it was found that a raft
would do momentarily in its place, the original skill and
knowledge might easily die out in a generation. Therefore
the absence of canoes alone would be no convincing argu-
ment. Nor must it be forgotten, as Dr. Rivers has pointed
out, 3 that other causes besides defective memory and lack
of practice may result in the entire disappearance of even
useful arts. But I repeat hardly of so many among all these
tribes in common.

Everything points to the conclusion that these tribes
found their way to the forest in a very primitive condition.
The forest has arrested, it has stunted their growth, but it
has not plunged them back from later cultures to the Stone
Age. The stones themselves deny it, for stone is not the
natural substitute for iron in these regions.^ Whence the tribes
came hither, and when, in whatsoever far back age of our
earth's story, they were a Neolithic people — ^hardly that, a
people emerging from the unsettled conditions of the Paleo-
lithic hunter, agricultural but not yet pastoral, and such
they have remained throughout the centuries.

^ These canoes, it must be remembered, are not affairs of everyday
manufacture. They are tribal possessions, not many in number, and
needing time, skill, and, above all, experience, to make successfully.

2 For instance the wrong wood might have been chosen ; some trees
will not open when heated (cf. Andre, pp. 241-2).

3 The Decadence of Useful Arts.

* There are no stones in this region it should be remembered.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Physically, as may be judged from the accompanj^ng tables,
there is a wide margin for dissimilarity among these tribes.
Their appearance is nearly as varied as their speech, more so in
fact, in that there is much diversity of type even among indi-
viduals of the same speaking-group. I have seen a Boro as dark
as a Witoto, while his fellow - tribesmen may be yellow as a
Chinaman. It is, of course, possible that the darker Boro are
sons of Witoto women. The custom prevalent in all the tribes
of adopting the young children captured from their enemies,
makes of necessity for great changes in type even in one house-
hold, so that despite the preference for group endogamy that
undoubtedly exists there are few households where cross-breeding
is not in evidence.

In stature the Indian is small, which I take to be a result of
depression due to his forest environment ; but the body is well-
balanced and upright. Among the tribes I visited the Andoke
as a speaking-group were, so far as I could observe, the largest
in build and the tallest. The Okaina may possibly come into
the same scale. The Karahone represent the mean, while the
Maku are invariably small, a low class and badly-fed people.
The average measurements of the tribes are best gathered from
the types tabulated. I made the average height to be for men
5 feet 6 inches ; and for women 4 feet 10 inches.^ I certainly
remember one case of a man among the Andoke nearly 6 feet
high, but can recall no other. The women were never much
over the average of the female type. I give my measurements
for what they are worth, but unfortunately I did not know the
correct way in which they should have been taken ; they were

^ Wallace gives 5 feet 9 inches or 5 feet 10 inches as not uncommon for

the height of a Uaupes man (Wallace, pp. 335, 353), and the Isanna as very

similar. The Bugre are shorter, 5 feet 4 inches, and misshapen in the leg

(Oakenfull, p. 33). The Tukana, 160 to 170 centimetres (Koch-Griinberg).

269

270 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

made with a centimetre rule, but not on the correct anthrop
metrical principles. The Indians stood against the side of the
house to be measured, and I registered their height by the simple
process of placing the ruler on the head and measuring its dis-
tance from the ground.^

The bone of the Indian's skull is thick, and both dolicho-
cephaHc and brachycephaHc types are in evidence.^

The Indian does not run to fat, rather is he incHned to be
thin, but strong, muscular and healthy, with rounded outHne and
finely-developed chest. The Witoto, however, though broad and
strong, fail in the limbs, their legs especially lack development.
On this point my observations tally with Robuchon's notes. The
Tukana have a magnificent physique. The Andoke, though some
are tall, with large frames, as a group incline more to breadth of
both face and figure. The tribes of the Tikie are of a low grade.

The Indians as a rule, have hands of an average size, with
stumpy fingers, and short, spatulate nails. Constant manual
labour of some sort would seem to keep the nails naturally of a
normal length. I never remember seeing an Indian pare his
nails, but fear this is a point that may have escaped my observa-
tion. The men's arms are frequently distorted, and the shoulders
gain an artificial breadth by the use of Hgatures to swell the
muscles of the upper arm by means of constriction.
; The natural symmetry of the Indian's person is further
enhanced by sHght hips, flat buttocks. The abdomen seldom
protrudes though the navel is prominent, but not to the same
extent as is found among negroes.

The men generally have large feet,^ with long toes. Both
men and women have very prehensile toes, and will pick up
objects off the ground with their feet rather than trouble to
stoop. They are flat-footed.

The Indian does not extend his legs when he walks, as Euro-
peans do. He moves rather with the action of an unathletic
woman. His step is on an average about two -thirds of an
ordinary man's thirty-inch pace. The foot is of necessity raised
well above the ground, on account of the Uanas which would trip
the slovenly walker. This does not make for rapid progression.
But though he walks more slowly than the white man, the Indian

1 I had no calipers, and the breadth in all cases is approximate only,
taken from point to point where it was individually greatest, not where,
as I subsequently discovered, scientific measurement decrees.

2 Tukuya, two types dolichocephalic. Koch-Griinberg. Napo, brachy-
cephaHc (Orton, p. i66). According to Orton the "long-headed hordes"
came from the south (Orton, p. 316).

3 Bates noted that the Tapuyo have "small hands and feet " (i. 78), and
Orton mentions it as a characteristic of races of Tupi origin (Orton, p. 316).

PLATE LI.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 271

can keep up a jog-trot of about five miles an hour for tremendous
distances. Moreover his wind is far better than any white man*s.
At a push, to get away from hostile neighbours for example, he
is capable of going sixty miles a day. In ordinary circumstances
he walks nowhere, except about the house and compounds.
Consequently he has developed a different set of muscles from
the ordinary pedestrian.

As the Boro are more harassed than the Witoto they march
as a rule in silence, while the Witoto are noisy generally ; but
a march in coimtry that might prove hostile is done in
silence by every tribe for obvious reasons. In friendly country
the Indians go along chattering and joking, or in silence, just as
the spirit moves them : there is no rule. The necessity for
walking in single j51e, and the invariable difficulties of the route,
do not, however, altogether encourage conversation. These re-
stricted paths have a further influence upon the Indian. Often
enough it is necessary to place one foot directly in front of the
other in order to find any footway at all. This is the probable
reason, or one of the reasons, why the men walk with a straight
foot, a specially needed precaution on the narrow bridges, that
are merely formed of single trees. The women walk in rather
a stilted fashion, with the toes turned inwards at an angle of
some thirty degrees, on account of the tight ligatures they wear
below the knee and above the ankle, which cause the calf to
swell to enormous proportions, as has been noted. This may not
inconceivably have a contracting effect in the angle of the foot.
It is regarded as a sign of power if the muscles of the thighs are
made to come in contact with each other when walking.

That the men run and jump well is due to their good wind,
but they have no pace, and could easily be outstripped over a
Umited course by an average white man in good condition. But
the women neither run nor jump with any facihty, as they all
suffer from varicose veins, caused by the Hgatures to some extent,
but also by the burdens they carry, and from labouring in the
fields when in a condition unsuited to such physical exertion.
As weights are carried on the back suspended by a strap across
the forehead, the tendency to stoop or grow round-shouldered is
counteracted, for the pull of the strap brings the head back, and
the strain is taken by the muscles of the neck.^ Water is always
carried in vessels balanced on the head, and though the

* The women are muscular in the neck, and will carry considerable
weights in baskets slung on a band passed round the forehead. They will
carry through the thickest bush as much as sixty pounds and more in the
same manner, their strength in lifting and carrying weights being
confined to the neck.

272 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Amazonian Indian may not have the superb carriage of her
sisters in the East, yet the young girls at least are very well set
up, though with advancing age a hf etime of field work and burden-
bearing may bow the elder women till they walk, as described by
Robuchon, ** in an inchned position."

The Indian woman has generally a beautiful figure, well
proportioned and supple, with high, straight shoulders. Untram-
melled by dress she is graceful and free in her actions. Before
marriage the women have very small breasts, but after they
have borne a child the breasts develop considerably. Old
women, probably on account of poorer nourishment, are very
flat-chested, and one never sees a woman with very pendent
breasts. In the older women they atrophy.^

There is great individuality in the faces of the Amazonian
Indians. A tribe is no herd of sheep, differentiated only to the
experienced eye of the shepherd ; the dissimilarities of coun-
tenance are immediately apparent, and even to the most casual
observer Indians show marked variety of face and colour and
feature. Like all savages the Indians admire most the lightest
coloured skins. The divergence of colour is both tribal and
racial ; and as a rule it will be found that the higher the type
the better the physical development, and the greater the mental
capacity, the lighter will be the skin. On account of the satura-
tion of the atmosphere the Indians mostly have skins of a good
texture. I never found rough skins on Indians in these districts.^

1 Robuchon states that the women's mammae are pyriform, and the
photographs show distinctly pyriform breasts with digitiform nipples. I
found them resembling rather the segment of a sphere, the areola not
prominent, and the nipples hemispherical.

2 Orton and Gait, however, note that " one will sometimes find the
skin of the Indian rough, hard, and insensible, like the skin of the larger
lower animals " (Orton, p. 591). Skin — Colour and Texture. — " Je remarque
que ces Indiens, comme les Roucouyennes et les Oyampis, ont les plis de
la peau beaucoup plus saillants que chez les races blanches et noires. Les
plis du genou resemblent a une peau d 'orange. Je voudrais representer
exactement ces details, qui m'interessent au point de vue anthropologique,
mais je trouve la dif&culte insurmontable. II me vient toutefois une idee ;
je fais barbouiller un Indien avec du roucou des pieds a la tete, et, a moyen
d'un papier mince que j 'applique avec la main, j'obtiens tous les details de
structure. Le roucou agit comme de I'encre d'imprimerie. Avec un peu
d'exercice je recueille les details anatomiques de toutes les parties du corps,
et particulierement des pieds, des mains, du genou et des coudes. II est
a noter que la peau d 'enfant a la mamelle presente des plis aussi accentues
que ceux d'un blanc k I'age adulte. La peau d'un jeune homme vue
a I'oeil me semble grossie trois fois a la loupe " (Crevaux, p. 303). We have
already noted that there Issa- Japura tribes are free from the skin diseases
that Napo and other Indians frequently develop. This probably accounts
for the contradiction of my observances with the notes of other writers.

PLATE LII.

AXDOKE COMB WITH NUTSHELL CUP FOR RUBBER LATEX
2. WITOTO COMB 3. BORO COMB

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 273

Of all the tribes the Menimehe have the Hghtest complexions,
and they are invariably fatter and in better condition than the
surrounding tribal groups.

I have mentioned the custom of covering a new-bom infant
with rubber milk either for warmth or to protect the skin ; the
women daub themselves with gum and a yellow clay because it
is supposed to preserve the skin ; but none of these peoples use
any oil for lubricating purposes, and they are free from any
noxious-smeUing secretion. The smell of a negro they consider
most offensive, but do not extend this disUke to the white man.
The Indian owes his immunity from this unpleasant trait in
part because he does not perspire at all freely, perhaps to differ-
ence of glandular secretion, and in part to frequent ablutions.
Yet, though even a dirty people like the Witoto will bathe at
least three times a day and most tribes far more often, these
Indians, as has already been noted, are by no means free of body
parasites. Head Uce may be said to be universal, and in addition
jiggers and the red tick that drops off leaves in the forest and
iDurrows under the human skin, there is another burrowing
parasite that invades the human body to lay its eggs, which is
extremely common among these people. One is apt to be in-
fested with these pests merely from touching an Indian, certainly
by lying in an Indian hammock. The parasite causes consider-
able irritation, and the local remedy is to apply babasco juice.

Except in the case of a medicine-man, who never depilates,
hair is looked upon as dirt ; therefore it is always removed, only
the hair of the head being permitted to grow. Depilation is
usually done just before a dance. The method of removal
adopted is to cover the hirsute parts with rubber latex. This is
allowed to dry, so that a grip can be obtained and the hair re-
moved simply with the forefinger and thumb or by means of
two small pieces of cane. Two persons will, as far as facial hairs
are concerned, depilate one another. It is universally considered
a sign of cleanhness to remove all the body hairs, and even to
pull out the eyebrows and eyelashes.^ That the eyebrows are
not removed for aesthetic purposes is proved by the fact that the
effect is promptly reproduced with paint. It is not easy to get
information with regard to the removal of body hair,^ but I was
able to obtain a Httle from a Karahone slave boy who was with
an Andoke tribe I met. He told me that the Karahone did not
depilate the hair of the face. This is the one exception among
these tribes.

^ See note on Depilation, p. 282.

* According to Wallace, though the Uaupes Indians remove facial or
body hair the Isanna tribes do not (Wallace, pp. 353, 356).

274 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

On the authority of Schomburgh, im Thum states that occa-
sionally when there is great demonstration of grief at a burial
" the survivors crop their hair." So far as my experience went
none of the Indians of the Upper Amazons ever " crop " the hair
close, except that of young girls when danger threatens. Should
there be any reason to suppose that some man is inclined to
steal a girl, her hair might be closely cut as a preventive measure
to save the child from being kidnapped, for a hairless woman is
looked upon as a social outcast among the tribes. The young
Indians have long hair that often reaches to below the small of
the back, but this length does not continue, and it is a varying
quantity among the adults.

The hair is uniformly scattered over the scalp, and is coarse
in texture, lank, and very abundant. Baldness is unknown,
and greyness, as with the negroes, is very rare. I have only seen
grey hair on a few people of apparently unusual age. In colour
it is almost uniformly black, a red- not a blue-black, which gives
it an occasional brown glint. Some of the children are lighter-
haired, but such a variation as red hair is unknown, though in
the sunlight the women's hair may take a reddish gleam. Both
women and children have finer hair than the men, and with
young children it is often quite downy. As a rule it is straight,
but among the Tukana wavy hair is more evident.

Among the greater part of these peoples the hair is not cut,
either by the men or women. The Karahone men cut their hair
to the shoulders ; the Boro women, and in some cases the men,
trim theirs round very much as is often seen among our small
girls. Sometimes the Witoto women trim their lank locks.
This is done with a knife if they have one, otherwise it is singed.
With the Menimehe and Karahone it grows very low on the
forehead. The Tikie tribes have most untidy and ill-kept hair.

Owing to race — possibly of Mongoloid origin — and to the
prevalence of depilatory customs, the men have scanty beards,
if any.

On the whole these Indians hold their own in the matter of
good looks, even the lowest types are not repulsive in appearance.
I mean, of course, to the eye of the stranger, not according to
their individual standard of beauty. In feature both the various
language-groups and the tribes of each group show many grades.
It may be taken as usual that with a hghter skin the nose and
lips are thinner than among those with darker colouring.
The Boro and the Resigero, both comparatively light-skinned
groups, have thin lips. This naturally follows from what I have
already said as to colour and type, the higher type possessing,
as would be expected, the more refined features. The Boro,

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 275

taken as a group, are the best looking, many of them are very-
handsome, and some of the Andoke also are notably well favoured
in appearance. " Noble " is Koch-Griinberg's decision on the
question of the Tukana tribesmen's appearance. The Okaina,
also, must be classed as good looking.

It seems somewhat of a contradiction after this to remark
that a squint is so common a trait among these tribes that one
cannot but notice immediately any one with normal eyes. This
is, however, with the exception of the Tukana, very prevalent
among all these tribes. The eyes are not large, and are deeply
set. They are black in colour with occasional yellowness of the
eyeball, but never to the degree seen in the bilious eye of the
negro. Both eyesight and hearing are very acute. In the bush,
or in the dark, the tribesmen have most penetrating sight, and
can distinguish details at a glance where the ordinary white man
can see nothing of any description. In the sun, or any strong
light, their sight is inferior.

It is difficult to judge what an Indian's ears would be like if
left to Nature's fashioning, as they are invariably distorted to
more or less degree by artificial means. They are frequently
prominent, and do not appear to be set close to the head in any
case. The large ear-plugs will pull the lobe of the ear half-way
down the neck and more. Nose-boring is not carried to so
disfiguring an extent. The Boro, especially the women of those
tribes, bore the wing of the nose — a custom peculiar to this people
— as well as the septum, which is also bored by Muenane and
Witoto women, but the nose pins are small, and do not distort
the feature as the ear-plugs do the ear. The Tukana's nose has
naturally large alae. The tribes on the Tikie also have broad
noses, with prominent cheek-bones, a characteristic noted by
Wallace among the Kuretu.^

The Indian's chin is narrow, small, rounded, and, especially
in the case of the women, retreating. There is no dimple
or cleft. The teeth are big and even, and very rarely found
projecting.

The Indian's expression is stolid enough ordinarily, but when
talking he has much play of feature, and he will gesticulate freely
under the influence of coca. Among the tribes to the south of
the Japura a man mil look a stranger straight in the face, but
north of that river the native has a more furtive glance. The
Indian's gaze is intense.

They are never demonstrative of affection, and, though they
will touch a white man as a salutation, never touch each other.
By this I mean that when friendlily disposed an Indian would
^ Wallace, p. 354.

276 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

return a white man's salute, the offer of the hand, but no Indian
would grasp a fellow-tribesman's hand, or put an arm around
his neck. Kissing is unknown among these people. Crevaux
records that he saw children among the Calina kiss to show
affection, but the nearest approach to an embrace I ever
witnessed was a slap on the shoulder, probably under the
shoulder-blade, which is the salutation between great friends.
Mothers of course fondle their children, and I have even seen a
woman with her arm round her husband, but such an exhibition
is considered barely decent. Neither do they exhibit grief by
weeping. The girl children cry occasionally, but no child ever
screams ; and adults may whine but never shed tears.

As regards brain-power, the Boro group are the most intelHgent,
with the possible exception of the Menimehe. I invariably found
the Boro exceedingly anxious to learn from me anything they
judged might be of utiHty to themselves. They evinced a
definitely intelligent interest, not to be confounded with the
ordinary curiosity of the untaught. Among all these peoples
the power of rriental development ceases after they have attained
puberty.

One limitation that is to be noticed with all of them is their
inabihty to grasp any chronological data. They have nothing
in the way of a tally of any description, and in speaking use the
vaguest expressions only for reckoning. It is my opinion, based
on observation of the number of generations still living at any
one time, that these people live to an advanced age. They grow
elderly at from twenty -five to thirty years, and may, under
favourable conditions, live another half-century or more. This
is borne out by the fact that I found occasionally a man with grey
hair — a sign in all coloured peoples, and I believe in Mongoloid
peoples, of great age. But no Indian can give any information
as to his own age, or the age of his children. For him age is
non est, time of Httle value. He cannot tell you when he came
to the neighbourhood in which you find him, though obviously
only a year or two may have been passed there. His day is
regulated to some extent by the rising and the setting of the
sun, portioned only by its height in the heavens. If but occasion
serve, one or other of the warriors, drunk with coca, will talk the
whole night through, excitedly recounting some folk-tale, or
endlessly boasting his feats in the hunt or on the war-path.
The interruption is not resented by his comrades, nor does it
seem to interfere with their slumber. Indians, in fact, never
appear to sleep much, or rather they sleep little and often, as
chance offers. Night is no more the time of repose than day,
except in so far as darkness puts a stop to certain of their

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 277

avocations. When sleeping on the ground an Indian curls up.
on one side with his knees to his chin, or he sleeps on his
stomach, seldom lying on the back.^

Though, as has been noted, they sleep with no wrap or cover-
ing, these Indians are most sensitive to cHmatic changes. They
are decidedly susceptible to a difference of locaHty, and, more
than this, in a land where the extreme contrast of temperature
is no more than twenty degrees throughout the year, with an
average of half that total, they are affected by even shght varia-
tions of temperature. They fear the cold of the early morning,
and, accustomed as they are to the half-Hghts of the forest, they
dishke sunshine, and prefer to keep in the shade, fearful of sun-
sickness if exposed to the sun.

It has been suggested by some travellers that the curious
habit of the Indians of inducing sickness every morning by means
of a feather was based on the idea that any food which was
retained in the stomach all night must be unwholesome and ought
to be removed immediately.^ I have often seen the Indians do
this, but always put it down to a desire to rid the stomach of the
non-absorbent constituents of the coca powder, as only the men,
who alone may take coca, resort to this practice. The Indian in
the early morning drinks an infusion of herbs, as I have already
mentioned, which induces the removal of such substances by
vomiting, although not taken primarily for this purpose.

Sickness is also secured with the fingers after a prohibitive
quantity of cahuana has been drunk, as afore noted, during a big
dance. Having imbibed to his utmost capacity, the Indian
adopts this simple expedient to enable him to drink again.

The tribes of the upper Amazons are, comparatively with
others, very cleanly. But it is only comparatively. The Boro^
are the cleanest, and the Witoto unquestionably the most dirty.
Immediately on rising all Indians resort to the river, but except
among the Boro and the Resigeros, who rub themselves with
sand, the performance can hardly be called washing, it is simply
bathing. The Nonuya and Muenane are cleanly, like the
Resigero. Even the Andoke, though they use no sand, are
cleaner than the Witoto, for this tribe never wash, and only
take a dip two or three times a day, while at least five times is
the ordinary rule with the majority. ^

^ I have found this amongst all people who sleep on the ground, I take
it, for obvious buffer reasons.

2 Simson, p. 93.

' During menstruation women wash more frequently, with intent to
arrest as well as to hide their condition. A girl at such times will bathe
as often as twenty times in a day. The cold water acts as a styptic.

278 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

The first duty of the morning is a visit, as has been said, to
the bathing-place. Thither troop the old and the young, both
male and female, to wash and revive in the water. They do not
attempt to rub their bodies dry, but are content to let the moist-
ure evaporate when they emerge from the stream. When on a
march or out hunting Indians will always bathe in any water
available on the route. They go in streaming with perspiration,
but seem to suffer no ill-effects. Bates has described them as
" taking merely a sitz-bath " Uke a dog,^ but they seemed to
me to bathe as any ordinary person would who went into the
water to get cool.

After returning from war the Indians bathe scrupulously
before they re-enter the house. It is in the nature of a cere-
monial washing, and possibly is a subconscious act of purifica-
tion, though the Indians, when asked the reason, told me only
that it was pia, our custom. In fact lustration with the Indian
is too frequent an action to keep any ceremonial significance it
may ever have had.

It follows as a matter of course with people so familiar with
water that one and all are expert swimmers. The Indian
of the Amazons invariably swims as naturally as he walks, and
with as little tuition. From the hour of his birth he has been
conversant with the river, and in a climate where the temperature
of the water varies but little from 75° to 80° or more, he regards
a dip as his chief solace. He never passes a stream without
taking advantage of its proximity to bathe, and the fact that he
may have recently fed, or that he is perspiring freely, does not
hinder him from a plunge, and makes no difference to his
enjoyment.

In swimming the Indian paddles like a dog, and does not
attempt to attain to anything approaching the breast-stroke of
the European, nor does he extend the legs widely. He flexes the
legs sharply upon the trunk, and, suddenly stretching them in a
straight line, drives the body forward. The stroke is not a tiring
one, and the native is capable of undergoing long immersion
without suffering exhaustion, but the speed he can acquire is
not remarkable. For that matter there are no reasons why
the Indian should desire to make rapid progression. Swimming
to him is an adjunct to bathing, or a means to cross a stream ;
its finer developments trouble him not at all. In the muddy
rivers of the Amazons there is nothing to tempt the, native to
dive, nor are there suitable places to jump off the banks. The
Indian slips in as best suits the occasion, and does not aspire to
exhibition feats, or to water games.

1 Bates, i. 200.

PLATE LIV.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 279

When bathing the Indian is exposed to a certain element of
danger from fish that inflict varying degrees of injm^y. There is
the stinging eel, and skate of some sort and another stinging
fish,^ the caneiro, and the piranha. Electric fish are less common
in the upper rivers than in the main streams, and I never noticed
one Indian of the Issa-Japura tribes take any special precaution
against them, though elsewhere the natives will beat and prod
the water with rods before they bathe, to discover, if possible,
whether any eels are lurking in the vicinity. The caneiro's
method of attack is by suction, not shock. They are very
plentiful in aU these rivers, and their power of suction is most
extraordinary. I am not likely to forget the first time I made
acquaintance with one of these voracious Httle fish. It suddenly
attacked, or rather attached itself with its sucker-like mouth, to
the inner side of my leg. The sensation was most alarming. I
made with all possible speed to land. The caneiro certainly
sucks up the flesh rapidly and painfully, but I am doubtful if
it really " tears off pieces of the skin and flesh," as it is said
to do.^ The piranha, though quite a small fish,^ is even more
ferocious. It will attack anything, and is said to be capable
of reducing a large animal to a skeleton in the space of a few
minutes. There is a story, repeated elsewhere, that one very
small fish is actually a human parasite. The Indians aver that
it will enter the body of a man when bathing. Orton mentions
this fish, which according to him is " a slender silurid fish {Van-
dellia) " but remarks that he never met " with one confirmatory
case." * Neither did I. But I found that all Indians take pre-
cautions against it when bathing,

* Simson, p. 234. 2 Simson, p. 235.
^ Four inches to fourteen inches in length (Keane, p. 551).

* Orton, pp. 482-3.

APPENDIX II

MONGOLOID ORIGIN

On the vexed question of original Asiatic extraction what little
evidence I have to offer is in general support of the theory that
some at least of the ancestral stock probably found their way
hither from Asia, or — what is more in accordance with the laws
of migration as so far ascertained — spread from the American
to the Asiatic continent. There is undeniably a marked
prevalence of what are recognised as Mongoloid traits among
these peoples. I fully accept Ratzel's dictum, " We may hold
firmly to the relationship of the Americans with the East
Oceanic branch of the Mongoloid race." ^ To quote another
writer, " As Burton remarks, this strain demonstrates itself in
big round Calmuck skulls, flat faces, with broad, prominent
cheek-bones, oblique oriental eyes, rather brown than black.
They have also dark thick eyebrows, and thin moustaches
fringing large mouths, with pointed teeth and sparse beards
hardly covering the long pointed chin." ^ The truth of this
description can be judged from the illustrations in this volume.
The most casual observer must notice the prevalence of
Mongoloid facial characteristics prevalent among the South
American Indians, such as obhquity of eye, prominent cheek-
bones, broad flat nose. My own observations led me to
conclude that the Mongoloid type was very pronounced in
individual cases, so much so that I estimated at least one per
cent to be of a pure Chinese type, and my common name for
them {vide my note on secrecy of individual names, p. 154) was
Chin-Chin. I would refer to such illustrations as that facing
p. 254 in the second volume of Spruce's Notes of a Naturalist.
(See again Spruce, i. 328 ; Orton, p. 170, for references to prevalent
obliquity of eye.) On the other hand. Bates remarks of the
Tupuyo that " their eyes are black and seldom obHque hke those
of the Tartar races *' (Bates, i. 78) ; and Wallace remarks, " I

^ Ratzel, ii. 170. 2 Oakenfall, p. 26.

280

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS 281

never could discern an unusual obliquity of the eyes " (Wallace,
p. 332). I cannot agree with this statement. The latter,
however, noted the prominent cheek-bone among the Curetu
(p- 354) '* 3Jid Orton refers to it and to the fiat nose (Orton,
p. 170).

Further characteristics in common among Mongoloid peoples
and these tribes are the customs of shaving or depilating facial
hair, and a prolonged period of suckHng the young {vide
Westermarck, p. 484).

APPENDIX III

DEPILATION

All tribes south of the Japura remove hair, except that on the
head.

Tukana depilate body hair.

Tuyuha men depilate armpits, not pudenda : women depilate
pudenda.

Kuretu — all depilate.

Purakato, according to Koch-Griinberg, do not depilate.

Karahone are said not to depilate. This (see text) is debatable.
I believe that they pluck out the hair of the chin and whiskers,
but leave eyebrows and moustache.

Bara — women only depilate.

Menimehe — all depilate, but the women are not so careful
about it as the Boro. M

Boro — all depilate. 9

Witoto — men more careless, women depilate. -

Tuhana, according to Koch-Griinberg, do not depilate.

Okaina — all depilate.

Resigero — all depilate.

Muenane — all depilate.

These tribes have no body hair, except pubic hair, which is
very scanty. The Indian women are most particular about the
removal of all pubic hair. The men are less careful, though it
is supposed to be done, but as that part of their bodies is never
voluntarily exposed they are more heedless than the women.

282

APPENDIX IV

colour analysis and measurements

Colour
{Vide Colour Curve. Tintometer.)

1. Menimehe — lightest. 6. Andoke.

2. Resigero. 7. Karahone.

3. Okaina. 8. Muenane.

4. Boro. 9. Witoto.

5. Nonuya.

Robuchon gives the colours of the Witotos as brown-copper
colour, varying between twenty-nine and thirty of the chromatic
scale of the Anthropologicas of Paris.

Colour Analysis
Unexposed Pari — Armpit

Matcliing Standards.

Colour developed.

Substance examinee

Red.

Yellow.

Blue.

Black.

Orange.

Red.

Witoto

Muenane

Karahone

[i 3-6

2-8

1-6

•2

•8

Andoke

Nonuya
Boro .

Okaina

Resigero

Menimehe

- 3-3

1*5

1-5

•2

•6

Mean average attempted by means of colour markings and
identified according to Lovibond's tintometer scale.

There was practically no tribal differentiation of pigmentation
in the imits of these groups, as far as the unexposed part of the

283

284

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

body is concerned. This is understandable. The palm of th3
nigger's hand differs Httle from his white brother's.

Colour Analysis
Exposed Part — Back

Substance examined.

Matching Standards.

Colour developed.

Red.

Yellow.

Blue.

Black.

Orange.

Red.

9. Witoto
8. Muenane

[

IO-6

9-2

6-2

3.0

1-4

7. Karahone
6. Andoke

8.7

7-5

4*5

4-5

3.0

1-2

5. Nonuya
4. Boro

8-0

7-0

4-0

3-0

I-O

3. Okaina
2. Resigero
I. Menimehe

4-9
3-4

4*4
4-1

1-5

•7

1-5

2-9
2-7

•5

Yellow.
.71

1 The only yellow free colour.

There is here more differentiation. The tribes numbered
1-9 are in order of shade, from the lightest according to personal
observation. This is borne out by data except the grouping
which was not so apparent to the eye.

Apparently in one tribe only is red non-existent, free yellow
taking the place — No. i (vide curve).

Colour Curves of Skin Pigmentation (Indians of the
Middle Issa and Japura Valleys)
Cawi/ff {//v/rs

YELLOW
CURIAE

"^OfiANGEL

URl^E

RED CUR

<£

/ 2 3 ^ S 6 7 d S

limehe. Resigero. Okaina. Boro. Nonuya. Andoke. Karahone. Muenane. Witoto.

Note.—\\.\]\\\ be seen at a glance that differentiation is caused by increased "sadness" or excess of
black, and by the amount of free red. These are the two governing factors. Orange is constant
throughout.

N.B. — There is extraordinary variation amongst individuals of the same tribe, as well as amongst
tribes of the same language-group and language-groups themselves.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

285

Huis' Measurements of Samples of Women's Hair

No. I. Maturity.

No. 2. Ante-pubertal.

Note. — The lighter tips of latter which become eliminated after puberty,
i.e. elimination of orange.

Red.

Yellow.

Blue. Black.

Green.

Yellow.

No. I ...

19-5

31-0

28-0= 19-5

8-5

3.0

No. 2 ...

i8-5

26-0

17.0=17-0

Orange.

1-5

Light tips . . )
Dark ends . . /

26-0

25-0= 19-0

Green.

6*o

i-o

Descriptive Characters

Eye. — I. Dark, i.e, black-brown iris. Note. — Outer angles of
eyes visibly elevated ; deep - set ; eyeball thick ; covers the
caruncle ; outer angle sHghtly compressed and pointed.

Hair. — Colours — i. Black, not coal black. 2. Children's hair
is some shade hghter than adults', but still " black."

Form of Face. — i. Face inclined to be square and wedge-
shaped. 2. Inclined to concavity. 3. Compare photographs. 4.
Chinese, Fig. 6, but not so pronounced. {N.B. — There is great
variation.) 5. Chin small, round, retreating. 6. Cheek-bones
broad. Face flat (inclination to, vide photographs). 7. Medium
lips — ^great variation. 8. Ears medium - sized— flat. 9. Lobes
sometimes attached.

Measurements of Types ^ in Centimetres

Tribe.

Head-

Round.

Head-

-Across.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

I. Resigero.

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

Approximate measurements.

286

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Tribe.

Head— Length.

Neck.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero.

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

20
21-5

24
22
21

18
19
20
19

Short

Long

Short

Medium

Short

Short
Short
Long
Short

Tribe.

Cheek-Bones.

Mouth,

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero

2. Nonuya.

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

High, not
pronounced
Very high

Wide, high

High, not
pronounced
High, not
pronounced
Wide, high

Moderate

Large

Small
Small
Large

Large

Small
Small

Tribe.

Teeth.

Eyes.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero .

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro.

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

Large
Large, even

Large

Oblique
Deep-set
Deep-set
Slightly
oblique
Oblique

Oblique
Oblique
Oblique
Oblique

Tribe.

Nose.

Height.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero .

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

Straight

Aquiline
Depressed
Aquiline
Flat

Broad,
bridged
Flat

Depressed
Depressed

160

168
162
171
164

149
146
146

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

287

Tribe.

Chest— Round.

Wafst.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero .

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

85
87

88
89
90

79
75
82

73
73

n
76

15
65

Hips-

Round.

Tip Shoulder-Tip Elbow.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

I. Resigero .

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

••

Tribe.

Elbow to Top Middle Finger.

Eminence Buttock to Tip
Flexed Knee.l

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero.

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

45
47
46
48
44

39
41
42
40

53
47
53
52

44
48

45
48

^ Outer measurements not, as they should have been, from head of fibula to
top of great trochanter.

Tribe.

Crutch to Tip of Flexed Knee.

Eminence Knee to Ground.

Male.

Female,

Male.

Female.

I. Resigero .

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

._ .,

288

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Tribe.

Feet.

Distance between Nipples.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero

2. Nonuya

3. Boro

4. Andoke

5. Witoto

Broad, large
Long
Large

Large, broad
Large, broad

Broad, small
Broad
Small
Medium

20
21-5

22
22

23
23
22
20

Length from Centre Nipples
to Navel.

Navel to

Crutch.

Tribe.

Male.

Female.

Male.

Female.

I. Resigero.

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

Tribe.

Remarks.

Male.

Female.

1. Resigero .

2. Nonuya .

3. Boro

4. Andoke .

5. Witoto .

Moderate

Lean

Well-nourished

Plump
Fat

Well-nourished
Very plump

Essential Measurements
Two Cases, Women, Witoto

/ IMaximum breadth

I -vrr Length from base to root

/ I Breadth across nostrils

[Projection)
I of head

Centimetres.

173

18-15

13-85

13-9

root .

4-3

4-0

3-0

root of

nose

9-2

lO-O

mouth

i6-o

14-2

chin .

ig-o

17-4

tragus

ear

107

12-0

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

289

9. Bizygomalic breadth of face

9. Face length from nasim to chin

10. Length of upper Umb

11. „ cubit

12. „ hand along its back

13. „ foot

14. Sitting height

15. Kneeling height

16. Standing height

17. (Obvious) height to chin

18. Height to sternal notch

19. Height from internal malleolus to ground

20. Span of arms . . . .

1275

10-2

6o-o 1

38-0
150
23-0
72-0

10375
139-5

120-5

117-0

6-4

140-5

12-0
9-3

^ N.B. — As Case 2 was growing, further measurements will be useless
if not misleading. These were taken with the help of a medical man and
are therefore more correct than other measurements.

Extra Notes on Two Women, Witoto (chosen types)
No. I. Very short neck ; short sternum ; straight shoulders.
When standing at ease the middle finger of hand is half-way
between flexion of knee and hip-joint. Thighs short.

No. 2. Neck short ; shoulders straight ; good teeth — very
large and even.

General Description of Two Indian Women for evolving
a Type. Both Witoto-speaking

No. I. Woman full grown. No. 2. Still growing, of pubertal
age. According to Schedule, pp. 11, Anatomical Observation.

External Characters. — General condition well nourished —
healthy. No. i. Stout. No. 2. Medium.

Descriptive Characters.

A. Colour of skin.

No. I. Exposed part light reddish-brown.
No. 2. Unexposed part — very much hghter, and
tintometer curve, etc.

B. Colour of eyes. Black.

No. I. Dark-brown iris.
No. 2. Black iris.

C. Fold of skin at inner angle of eyes.

2^ * ' I Covering the caruncle.

290

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

D. Colour of hair.

^°- ^•JBlackjl'™^" '" s^l'f t-
No. 2. J U.e. brown-black.

E. Character of hair (vide Section of Hair).

^^' * [straight and coarse (horse hair but finer).

F. Amount of hair.

No. I. Body very very scanty, depilation not recent.
No. 2. Face nil. Body nil.

G. Shape of face.

I Pyramidal.
I Wedge-shaped.
H. Profile of nose.

No. I. Chinese type.
No. 2. Chinese type, but not so pronounced, between
this and European.
I. Prognathism.
No. I. Slight.
No. 2. Very slight.
J. Lips.

No. I. Medium — sUghtly everted.
No. 2. Medium European type.

No. 2.

No,
No.

• I 1

j-Platyoprosopic not excessive.

APPENDIX V

ARTICLES NOTED BY WALLACE AS IN USE AMONG THE UAUPES
INDIANS THAT ARE FOUND WITH THE ISSA-JAPURA TRIBES

Household Furniture and Utensils

Hammocks.
Baskets, flat and deep.
Calabashes and gourds.
Earthenware water-pots.
Earthenware cooking-pots.
Manioc graters.
Manioc squeezers.
Wicker sieves.

Weapons
Bows and arrows.
Quivers.
Blow-pipes.

Small pots and calabashes for poison.
Spears.
Nets.

Rods, lines, and palm-spine hooks.
Wicker fish-traps.

Musical Instruments
Fifes and flutes of reeds . . Menimehe and Napo tribes.

Dress and Ornaments
Feather head-dress.
Palm-wood combs.
Necklaces of seeds, beads, and teeth.
Wooden ear-plugs.
Armlets.
Painted aprons.

292

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Rattles and ornaments for legs.

Knitted garters.

Calabashes of red pigment.

Painted earthen pot for capi.

Small pot of dried peppers.

Dancing rattles.

Balls of string.

Baskets for edible ants.

Small dug-out canoe.

Paddles.

Pestles and mortars.

Bombax silk-cotton for arrows.

Stone axes.

APPENDIX VI

NAMES OF DEITIES

Many writers have stated that the Indians of the Upper Amazon
forests have no words in their languages to express a Supreme
Being. (See, for example, Bates, i. 162 ; Wallace, p. 354 ; Nery,
p. 273 ; Orton, p. 316 ; Bates, ii. 137, 162-3 ) Markham.)
It therefore seemed to me worth while to make the following
Kst of words expressive of some idea of a superior, non-human
being, good or bad.

Tribe

Good Spirit.

Bad Spirit.

Amazon (proper)

Curupira

Diaho do mato

(Spruce, ii. 437)

Atabayoo,

Inivida

Cachimana

lolokiamo

(Orinoco

tribes)

(Humboldt, ii. 362)

Baniwa

Diotso

Yenauepena

(Koch-Griinberg)
lenahahapen

(Tavera-Acosta)

Bare

Diose (Sp. Dios.)

lyehe

(Koch-Griinberg,

(Koch-Griinberg)

p. 92)

Oayaba

(Spix)

Boro

Neva ^

Navena ^

Bororo

Bope^

(Cook, p. 55)

Casiquiari

Yamadu
(Spruce, ii. 437)

Equatorial

Andes

Munyia

(Spruce, ii. 437)

iVtfwa = also sun, morning. ^ iVawewa = ghost, devil.

^ Bope = aA^o disembodied soul.

293

294

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Tribe.

Good Spirit.

Bad Spirit.

Guayana

Yawahoo .
(Bancroft and
Stedman, Spruce, !
"• 437)

Hypurina

Kamiri '
(Steere, p. 379)

Imihita Miranya

Nawene

(Koch-Griinberg,
Z. 9081)

Karutana

Inei

(Koch-Griinberg,
P-93)

Katapolitani

lyemi, Koai

(Koch-Griinberg,
P- 93)

Puru

Ara, Carimade

Arabuny, Camery,

(Clough, p. 117)

Mendy
(Clough, p. 117)

Quichua

Apunchi-yaya ^
(Orton, p. 628)

Siusi

Yaperikuli 2

lyeimi

(Koch-Griinberg,

p. 92)

P-93)

Tamanac

Amulivaca ^

(Humboldt, ii. 473-
474)

Tariana

Yaperikuli

lyei

(Koch-Griinberg,

P-93)

p. 93)

lapiricure

Inhat

(Crevaux)

Ticuna

Nanuloa

Locazy

(Markham)

Tupi-Guarani

Tupan *

Ananga ^

(Nery, p. 281)

Uaupes

Tupanau

(Wallace, p. 348)

Uarekena

Kue

(Koch-Griinberg,
P- 92)

1 Yaya

= father.

2 Yapei

'ikuli = \ieroes.

3 Origin

ally father or creator, not G

reat Spirit.

« Soul c
^ Soul c

)f father or parents.
)f Evil.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

295

Tribe.

Good Spirit.

Bad Spirit.

Witoto

Usiyamoi} Husin-

Taifeno, Taifa,

aimui

Taegfeno (spirit).

(Koch-Griinberg)

Foremo (phantom)
(Koch-Grxinberg)

Yagua

Tupana

(Orton, p. 628)

Yukuna

Hiya

(Koch-Griinberg,
P-93)

Zaparo

Piatzo 2

Mungia (black

(Orton, p. 628)

spectre)

(Orton, p. 170)
Zamaro

(Simson, p. 175)
Samaro

(Simson, p. 263)

^ Heroes of the tribe.

Also great-great-grandfather.

APPENDIX VII

VOCABULARIES AND LISTS OF NAMES

Note re Pronunciation. — Vowels as in Italian and consonants as
in English. The system adopted by the Anthropological and Geo-
graphical Societies has been followed.

SOME WITOTO TRIBES OF THE ISSA-JAPURA
WATERSHED

Achopego.

Enenea.

Himua.

Aifuya.

Enifofo.

Hipunya.

Aiguya.

Enokaise.

Hitamene.

Aigwene.

Erai.

Homaguya.

Aimene.

Erifo.

Huieku.

Aiyofo.

Hui-Hui.

Amenane.

Fainya

Hurae.

Angarofo.

Feyagene.

Husinene.

Aniliene.

Fitia.

Arama.

Foetano.

lagero.
lane.

Aronia.

Fueragero.

Baienise.

Futekwene.

Iconya.
Ifekwene.

Chaigero.

Gidone.
Gimene.

Ipunya.
Isikifo.

Chepeye.

Guidua.

Ttomflnp'frn

Choria.

Gwamareya.

lyane.

Dedinuia.

Hane.

Diguene.

Hedua.

Kaiduya.

Hegero.

Kaio.

Eguidafo.

Hemui.

Kaniane.

Eifuya.

Heone.

Kaniene.

Eikifo.

Heya.

Kitopeise.

Emerai.

Hifikuine.

Kokoya.

Emuidifo.

Hikoniai.

Kotuene.

Enao.

Himene.
296

Kotwine.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

297

Kuito.
Kumaiere.

Machifuri.

Megiya.

Menia.

Merekweine.

Mereta.

Mikagwe.

Minwa.

Mofuinista.

Mokine.

Monane.

Monanisei.

Monanuise.

Monawike.

Muidofege.

Muititefa.

Muitofeiche.

Naikwene.

Naimene.

Naiuiene.

Nefesa.

NemuigcLTO.

Nigwerene.

Nimaita.

Nofuinista.

Nirafo.

Nomene.

Nomuene.

Nongone.

Nonuya.

Nufuidai.

Nufuya.

Nuisai.

Nuiuene.

Owapirei.
Owapure.

Pofaito.

Pueneisa.

Puinaise.

Puineita.

Puruia.

Raikene.

Riai.

Rochegero.

Ruiraga.

Sebua.

Seguene.

Sigwene.

Sikibia.

Sikitaise.

Taigwene.
Taikebua.
Tiase.
Torifa.

Uane.

Uchopego.

Uekanise.

Uguine.

Uiguene.

Uhiya.

Urafo.

Urama.

Utiguene.

Yaaniani.

SOME TRIBES OF THE OKAINA GROUP

Aniokasa.

Dukaiya.

Ekanocha.

Enoya.

Fatite.

Harabahanako.

Konega.

Movanio.

Netarako.

Nimone.

Ofofo.

Pikaha.

Tokoia.

Tonhanoija.

Zohonoija.

SOME BORO TRIBES OF THE ISSA-JAPURA WATERSHED

Atehl.

Bachiwame.

Bakiehe.

Bakohe.

Chemaio.
Chenome.
Chibame.

Dossamehe.

Ibamahe.

Ikepake.

Imene.

Inege.

Itiage.

Ivamehe.

Kontadura.

Kugwamihe.

Kugweme.

Megwae.

Megwamehe.

Mememue.

Metakwe.

Nabeme.
Nevahe.
Nonuya.
Nuremehe.

Oha.
Okaina.

298

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Paheime.

Ugwame.

Warime.

Pei.

Uhemehe.

Warine.

Pirehamuena.

Uratefo.

Wanime.

Teiere.

Uwame.

Wawako.

Tichibamuene.

Wanahe.

WITOTO CHIEFS AND MEDICINE-MEN

Aikikwe.

Henatoba.

Mein5dtofo.

Ainenatofe.

Hifaro.

Monagara.

Amenatofe.
Amuiyena.

Hirevaina.
Huguraitoma.

Naimekwe.

Husinachire.

Okaima.

Bogana.

Itomakuto.

Okainama.

Diehi.

Puinanyete.

Diomao.

Kaimarigero.

Puinayeni.

Eavama.

Kutina.

Puineima.

Echu.

Kutofirima.

Riaduema.

Efuyaima.
Etokwenami.

Kwegado.
Kwegare.

Sekwana.
Sotaro.

Fenamena.

Magui.

Suneirokwe.

Forina.

Maiji.
Maiu.

Tifecheamena

Hename.

Mayi.

Wamue.

NAMES OF BOI

^0 CHIEFS AND 1

MEDICINE-MEN

Adiama.

Gwanebe.

Nevame.

Adiwako.

Nipemeiwako.

Agepa.

Ibaje.

Nivagwa.

Akteume.

Ibapakama.

Nivahna.

Ativa.

Imenepa.

Ativatahe.

Inateraka.

Poachiiba.

Bugwaheio.

Kadokuri.
Katinere.

Rimetagwa.

Chevetahgwe.
Chiako.

Kivape.

Tchitchitaga.

Chikaho.

Magapamena.

Teripa.

Darapade.
Dekio.

Matremiko.
Mewago.

Tikaame.
Tirakagwako.

Dihidihe.

Mucheochime.

Tirakawako.

Ekeniba.

Muchichigwako.

Uvatipa.

Evahihaia.

Nehevaio.

Evahikie.

Nevamarime.

Wadikova.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS
WITOTO

299

Darkness (devil) Apuehana

Fire .... Ireiki

God .... Usiyamoi

Moon . . . Fuibui

Sky . .

. Mona

Sun . .

. Itoma

Water .

. Heinowei

Hunger

Ameniti,

Laugh .

Sateide, seteide

rape

Metal . . .

Okkupe

Powder (dust) .

Himuisa

Paper (book) .

Kwerape (liter-

Sleep . . .

Inude, unyud

ally my

kwinyakate

leaves)

Sleep, dream .

Inie

Paper (leaves) .

Rape

Bush, the . .

Aisikumo

River . . .

Imane

CUff ....

Ifere

River, a large .

Ichtte

Compound .

Gicheipwere

Road . . .

Palm jungle

Amena

Stream .

Hurete

Plantation .

Akafo

Streamlet . .

Ichemo

Alligator pear .

Nomedo

Palm drink

Coca ....

Hibia

(pjnayo) . .

Himepwi

Cocoa

Museje

Palm -spines

Edo

Fruit (general) .

Rie

Pepper .

Ifigo

Grape fruit .

Hurekoi

Pineapple .

Rosiji

Gum (rubber

Plantain

Ogoda

milk) . . .

Hittie

Plum . . .

Nemawsi

Leaves .

Rape

Rubber . . .

Isire

Maize

Bechado

Rubber latex .

Hittagei

Mango palm

Himeki

Sugar-cane .

Kananoganei

Mango palm

kononga

drink .

Hayabei, haga-

Sugar-cane juice

Kananogan-

pui

'heinowei,

Manioc (poison-

kononochiki

ous) . . .

Maika

Tobacco

Deui

Palm . .

Amena

Tree ....

Inya

Palm . . .

Himepile,

Trees, felled

Amena

hitiji

Tree poles . .

Neda

Withe . . .

Vineihi

Bird (small

Birds, chickens .

Ataba hissa

generally) .

Siji

Capybara

Okeina

Bird (small un-

Curassoa

Eifoke

known species)

Iguyitoi

Deer (one species

Kito

Bird, cock .

Eitaba

Deer (generally)

Chaota

Birds (small

Eggs (generally)

Herga

game) . . .

Ataba

Eggs (one kind)

Ataba hige

300

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Fish (genera

1) , Jukua

Pig, small .

. Emo

Jaguar .

. . Hekko

Spider .

. Humakinyo

Monkey (general) Homa

Tapir

. Zuruma

Monkey

(one

Tiger, dog, etc

. . Hekko

species)

. Hemwi

Turkey .

. Muitoka,

Monkey, small . Hidobe

muito

Parrot .

. Kwiyoto

Turkey (another

Parrot (another

kind) . .

. Egwe

kind) .

. Kweko, Uiyike

Turkey Buzzard Eifoke

Pig . .

. Mero

Boy . .

. . Toil

People . .

. Komweine

Girl . .

. Rinyosa

Stranger

. Oikommo

Lad . .

. Hivisa

Stranger,

Man . .

. Rema

enemy .

. Ikagmake

Man, old

. Weikiroma-

Stranger, a friend Cheinama

superoma

Woman .

. Rinyo

Man, strong

. Raima

Woman, old

. Weirinyo-

Men, white

irokwe

(Europeans

) . Riei, riama

Brother —

Niece —

Man speaking Ama

Brother's child Enasanyo

Woman speak-

Sister's child . Momonio

ing .

. . Tio

Sister-

Brother-in-law . Oima

Man speaking Mirinyo

Child .

. Hito

Woman speak-

Father .

. Moma

ing . .

. Epunyo

Grandfather

. Marama

Sister-in-law

. Ofanyo

Grandmother . Einyoko

Uncle —

Husband

. Une

Father's

Mother .

. Einyo

brother .

. Iso

Nephew —

Mother's

Brother's child Enasai

brother .

. Vichama

Sister's child . Komona

Wife . . .

. El

Anus

. Sirafo

Finger . .

. Onoko

Arm .

. Onawji

Flesh . .

. Jukua

Fore-arm

. Onefai

Hair . . .

. Ifoterai

BeUy .

. Ero

Hair (body)

. Heinektere (/)

Blood .

. Dueidi

heineitere

Body

. Namaseapwi

Hair (face) .

. Eimago

Bowels .

. Hepe

Hair (pubic)

. Hueke

Chtoris .

. Hito

Hand . .

. Ono .

Ears . .

. Efo

Head . .

• Ifo

Eyes

. Vise

Heart . .

. Komeke

Face . .

. Uyeko

Limbs

. Rueisi, reesi

Feet . .

. Elba, epa

Mouth . .

. Fue

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

301

Nails . .

. Onokobi, ono-

Semen .

Uke

peko

Skull . . .

Ifoku

Nails (toe) .

Ekohe

Teeth . . .

Isido, isife

Navel

Modda

Testicles

Hinyergo

Neck . .

Kimo

Tongue .

Hufe

Nose . .

Dofo

Urine

Poji

Penis . .

Hechina

Vagina . . .

Berirafo

Pudenda

Jana

Ague . .

Fuihuiko

Illness .

Duide, tuike

Diarrhoea

Nuimuisa, Jui,

Small-pox .

Guiyoko, tu-

chui

tuko

Bark cloth .

Vinei

Necklace of seeds Imaidu

Beads . .

Sirie

Necklace, of

Breech cloth

Mokoto, mak-

teeth . . .

Efoke

uto iroi, hinoi-

Slippers, boots .

Epa iko

giroi

Socks . . .

Epa iko (see

Clothes (general)

Uiniroi

Feet and Cap)

Cord (belt) .

Kirige

White man's cap

Ifoigiko, ifoiko,

Feather head

iko

ornaments .

Eniago

White man's

Necklace, dance

Chikai

shirt . . .

Kaifofero

Baking-pan .

Sipe

Lighted torch .

Maha

Cassava .

Tano

Mat ... .

Duriei

Firewood

Rege

Pot ... .

Inogo, ichuki

Hammock .

Kunei

Thatch . . .

Ereije

House

Hofo

Tobacco-pot

Kuruke

House, large

Ejo hofo

Torch

Rekekawdo, re-

Hut . . . .

Hiochupe

keketo, recheki

Light (artificial)

Maha

Axe . . . .

Chovema

Pan pipes .

Piabami

Blow-pipe .

Obidiake

Sword

Chovega

Fish-hook .

Fakawasi

Trap, animal

Iregi

Knife . . .

Chovefa, chove-

Weapons, stones.

tera

shot

Chowefi, jowefi,

Drum . . .

Hugwe

chowefei

Drum mallet .

Quaki

Signal-drum

Ware

Afternoon .

Nawipe

To-morrow .

Wiremonei (see

Morning

Wiremoni

Morning)

Morning, early .

Monanyeno

To-morrow, day

Night . .

Nagona

after . . .

Dawire

Night, last .

Nago, hahe

Twilight . .

Naruide, na-

nago

gona-yakate

Night before last

: Beinawife

Yesterday .

Nawire

To-day . .

Beiruido

Yesterday, day

before .

Beinawire

302

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

All . .

. Nana

How much ?

Niga ?

Before . .

. Fuere

Much . . .

Eijo

Before (position) Uikota

Much, enough .

Monome

Before (long time) Heiyei

Nobod}^ .

Buna

Behind . .

. Moina

Now ....

Monokoi

Behind (position) Moina

Only . . .

Dama

Enough .

. Asirete

Then, afterwards Achue

Farther .

. Beife

There

Batinomo

For . . .

. Mero

This ....

Pie

Full, carefully,

Together

Fofona {?)

good measure . Einue

Well? . . .

Mei?

Full . . .

. Moniteidi, mo-

What? . . .

Nifote ?

nite

Where ? . . .

Ninomo 2

Here

. Benomo

Who? . . .

Bu?

How many ?

. Nigama ?

Why ? . . .

Nibaji, nibeiji ?

No . . .

. Damaita

Yes ... .

Huhh, U

Not . . .

. Inyete

(ventral)

I . . .

. Kwe

We ... .

Koko

Thou

. 0

You ....

Omei

He, she, him

. Afima

They, them

Afimaki

Bad . .

. Figonigete

Light (sun) .

Hite

Big .

. Eijue

Light (weight) .

Fekote

Bitter

. Neimenete

Long . . .

Are

Black

. Ituide

Red ....

Larede

Cold .

. Rosirete

Short . . .

Hiannare

Cool .

. Maneide

Small, little

Yewrete

Dark

. Hitirite

Soft ....

Itieide

Dead.

. Teide

Straight . . .

Huchinyete

Deeper

. Nana efarite

Strong .

Agarrite

Dry .

. Daherede

Thick . . .

Herie

Good

. Figora

Thin. . . .

Henite

Hard

. Agarrite

Twisted . . .

Huchite

Heavy

. Merete

Well (in health)

Gagritte

Hot .

, Usirete

White . . .

Userede

Early, soon

. Ono

Soon

Reiri

Slowly .

. Puiya

To bathe

. Noise

To cry .

Ede

To bring

. Ate

To dry ,

Nokitenyete,

To carry

. Ui

nohipiiinyete

To come do^

vn . Anahi

To eat . .

Oko, gunyo

To come up

. Kifobi

To go down

Anahei

To cool

. Rosirete

To go quickly .

Reiri maka

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

303

To go up

Kifohei

To rain . .

. Nokitede, noki

To hear, listen.

puite

understand

Kekate

To sit down

Anarana

To heat . . .

Usirete

To sleep

. Mei-ine

To hurt . .

Isirete

To speak

Naitode

To hke, love, de-

To stay .

. Fuipire

sire (persons) .

Dwere-uite

To take . .

. Gweipi

To like, love, de-

To urinate .

. Chowei, pochitt

sire (things)

Oyakate

To wait .

Anafue

To know

Onote

To wash

. Hokoa

To make

Nenyo, fuiho

To work

. Biefono,

I am ...

Iti kwe

We are . .

. Iti koko

Thou art

Iti-o

You are .

Iti omoi

Heis . . .

Afima ite

They are

. Afimaki ite

I was

Kwe ia

We were

. Koko ia

Thou wert .

la 0

You were .

. Ia omoi

He was . . .

Afima ia

They were .

. Afimaki ia

One ....

Dahe

Four . .

. Menahere

Two ....

Mena

Five .

. Dapekwiro

Three . . .

Dahe-amene

Ten . . .

. Nagapekwiro

Ask me .

Kwemohikka

Give me .

Kweme

Give me food .

Eka

A few days ago

Tika true

It is dark

Nawite

It is going to rain .

'Teyakate
Puiyakate

What tribe do you belong to ? .

0 Komweine ?
0 Memeka bu ?

Move along ! .

• • 1

jHeil
Wo I

Come !

Bi!
(Hikka Ite
Hikka Are

It is very far .

It is near

Hiannare

It is very near

Hikka-iannare

It is very much farther .

Hikka-fe

Be quick

Reiri

Be slow .

fPwia hei
^Pwia ifo

You do not want me

Kwena dueruenyeteo

I am about to punish you

0 feitakkwe

What do you want ?

Nifote oyakateo

How much do you want ?

Niga oyakateo .

304

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

I want to see .

I want to eat .

I want to sleep

I do not want to sleep

Let us sleep

Let us walk

Let us bathe .

Go and wash .

What are you doing ?

What are they doing ?

What have you done ?

What have you others done ?

Are you sick ?

What is the matter with you ?

What pains you ? .

He is dead ....

He is well again

Put water to boil

We are nearly there .

We have not arrived

It is a long way yet.

It is a very long way

It is very short

Put on more wood .

Fill it full ....

Be careful not to break it

Remove the leaves .

Open it carefully

Cook only manioc and plantains

Eat the skins ....

Take some crushed maize

How many women are there ? .

From what cause has your
brother died ? . . .

Why did you leave the child out-
side ? It will be eaten by the
dogs .....

Go soon and guard the women .
Do not do it again .
An unmoral Indian woman
An immoral Indian woman
With whom have you been having

intercourse ? . . .

How many husbands have you

had ?

Are you (a virgin) married ?

Eroi yakatekwe

Okoyakatekwe

Iniyakatekwe

Iniyakanyetekwe

Meikoko ini

Manyakoko maketchi

Many a koko noi

Hokorise

Nefoteo nia ?

Nefoteo nietimeke 2

Nefoteo nieteo ?

Nefoteo omoi nieteo ?
fO seicha ?
\Tuiko teiteo ?

Neisoi o icha ?

O nino isiritte ?

Ei e teide

Ei e hichoet

Heinoi kokoita

Duki-eikateki

Duki nieteke

Nia areiti

Nia are are are

Wei iannare

Nane rege honne

Nue oruita

Chitesai

Rape honne

Nue ekonotta

Dama seteo meika ogoto

Igore ine

Pechato tuta hisano ui

Niga rinyona hisa ite ?

Nipeiche tio teide 2

Nipeiche hito htno o fuaka ia

daria
Mei rieri rinyona hofona ipeise
Mene amanyete omoi
Rinyo Rei-irage
Rinyo Kachirete

Bu tika beriteo ?

Nigama hettora-o ?
Nia rutanyega-o ?

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

305

Feka

Fekanyete

Mekkate

Mekanyete

Kehanyete

Who ravished you ? . . Bu-o rutaka ?

You are bUnd (a fool) . . O ui nirite

Do not delay .... Fwepi neri

Give me something .

Do not give anything

Walk ....

Do not walk .

I do not understand

That's my business (common ex-
pression without intention of
rudeness) ....

My body aches

Let me go ... .

Hold me ....

Turn round ....

Do not move ....

Why do you shout ?

It is big .....

It is small ....

It is not good ....

Do you hke it ?

Do you not hke it ?

You are pretty

You are ugly ....

You are dirty ....

I want you ....

I do not want you .

Tie well (the cross poles) .

Tie higher ....

Take care not to break

Well done, you thatch well

Is everything clean ?

That is dirty, I shall punish you

It is very sweet

I do not hke it hot .

I like it warm

Look well in front of you .

The plantation is a good one

The plantation is a bad one

Let us go and build a house

There are not sufficient palisades

All of you bring timber

You make the thatches

These boys will bring canes

These others will bring palm leaves

Those will make holes

I do not want it there

Pia

Kwe apui isirete
Kwe-mosueta
Kwe-mojeno
Jireno
Weihoi

Nipeiche kicheteyo 1
Ei ichwe
fHurete
[Eichonyete
Fogonyete
Kimmarueteo ?
Kimmaruenyeteo 2
Nuen otego
Nuenonyeteo
Oapwi gagrette
Ona dueruetckwe
Ona duerueneickwe
Nue kwina
Keifofe kwina
Titeise

Met omoi ita
Nana ganino fuinore ?
Vie gagrette a kioiteo o feitikwe
Eicho nimerettega
Usirete ittinyetekwe
Chiei maneide ittitekwe
Nue oroi
Nue akafo icha
Akafo fogonyete
Many a ofo koko fuinoche
Nia amena nana inyete
Omoi amena atiche
Are niite omoi
Bie hettanitino are gweichi
Bimeke ererite
Bimeichino iffweirakte
Batinomo ittinyetekwe

3o6

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Open it here ....

Send me the small boy

Go and throw away that water

Wash it well

Do not delay

You are dirty

Put it there

Put it here

Put it yonder

Do not put it over there .

Why are you sad ? .

Who hurt you ? . . .

When did you come ?

When did you go ? .

It is so firm I cannot move it .

Bring the wood

Do not throw them away

I am going to see

If you do not bring them, I shall
punish you ....

Plant them carefully

Go and clean up . . .

Place all the sticks together

You have left the plantation un-
tidy .

Why don't you bring it ?

Make enough cassava

Let it be good

Bring a little .

Not enough

It is soft

What are you doing ?

What are you eating ?

Where are they — the rest of you ?

Why have they (the others) gone
without telling me ?

Bring it to the light

To-morrow go and see the tribe
and then return here together

Split it mth the knife

Take out the cane early

It is rich

Wash the pot well before boiling
water in it .

Do not put much fruit in it

It is very inconvenient

I am unable

Benomo ekkono

Urettema kwemo hito

Mei ha i heinoi dota

Nue hokorii

Are enyeno bi

Nia gagrette

Batinomo honne

Benomo honne

One honne

Batinomo honne nienc

Nipeiche sure iteo 2

Bu 0 faga ?

Nirueteo viteo ?

Nirueteo heito ?

Are agagrette ekkononyette

Itofie nue omoi ire

Oni tinyeno nue ofitare

A chimitekwe

Omoi pweya fachiomoi
Nue omoi haire
Mei omoi reitiseiri
Reitekinyo nue omoi ofitare

Akkafo gagritte omoi fueka

Nipeiche atinyeta omoi ?

Eichwe tano fuinore

Nuere finoiche

Yewre atitomoi

Dutenyete

Itieide

Nifote niecomoi ?

Nifote okoteomoi ?

Ninomo iteomoi ?

Nipeiche kwe jonyeno heite omoi ?

TJseritenomo ate

Weirimoni dama komweine hoke
teiteo nana fofona orerire

Chovefa do ekkono

Monanyano kononwe ono

Kei maritte

I chiko nue hoko heinowei hoku-
itechi

Eicho rie dotenyino

Y otirette
(Kwe mona
[Hitinyete

}

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

307

I shall carry it

Diuitikwe

Do not carry it

Uinyetekwe

I am tired

Aeeiontekwe

You are going to carry manioc .

Meika omoi ui

BORO

Brother . . .

Tanyabe

Man .

. Gwapime

Chief . . .

A bihibya

Medicine-man . Chekobe

Chief's wife .

A bihilya

Mother .

. Gwaro

Child . . .

Chemene

People .

. Akime

Father . . .

lero

Sister

. Tanyali

Fellow -tribes-

Sluggard

. Ubeye

man

Miamuina

Son . .

. Chukije

Husband

Tahc

Wife . .

. Tapa

Liar . . .

A liraje

Woman .

. Gwame

Abdomen

Mebigwa

Hair . .

. Nikwako

Arm ....

Menejeko

Hand .

. Meuche

Back . . .

Meatche

Head .

. Nikwa

Belly . . .

Epae

Heart .

. Meebe

Blood . . .

Tibune

Knee .

. Mimoko

Body . . .

Kepe

Leg . .

. Take

Bone

Pukene

Mouth .

. Mehe

Bosom .

Neghpane

Navel .

. Icheba

Buttocks . .

Medehe

Neck

. Metchke

Cheek . . .

Mekwa

Nose

. Metiko

Ear ... .

Menimeo

Penis

. Nomeo

Eye ....

Ajike

Testicles

. Domiba

Finger .

Utsigwako, me-

Thigh .

. Kibaje

chiko

Tongue .

. Menigwa

Flesh . . .

lyame

Tooth .

. Igwahe

Foot. . . .

Tia

Vagina .

. Elyapo, diugwa

Ague . . .

Chinabe

Tick . .

. Chichihe

Prickly heat

Nikemoi

Wound .

. Pepene

Smallpox

Maraipa

Dance .

Machiba

Remedy

(in

Falsehood .

Achipe

general)

. Tabota

Fear ....

Apichune

Smell

. Tukine

Grief . . .

Abiyene

Truth .

. Imiane

m . . . .

Chemei

Agouti .

Bute

Bird . .

. Karaha

Anaconda .

Bua

Capybara

. Uba

Ant-eater .

Ehe

Deer . . .

. Nibigwa

Armadillo .

Tie

Fish . . .

. Amome

3o8

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Flea ....

Ikookwa

Paca

Take

Frog ....

Nihagwa

Parrot . . .

Yabe

Hawk . . .

Ane

Pig ... .

Mene

Head-louse .

Knawni

Tapir

Ukahe

Jigger-flea . .

Mipahe

Tiger, wild dog .

Wipe

Land crab .

Nekwalige

Tucan . . .

Neiche

Monkey ., .

Kemuime

Turkey-buzzard

Pikahe

Mosquito

Nee

Wild turkey .

Imiko

Cane

Imuepa

Manioc (Poison-

Cassava .

Mao

ous)

Pika

Cassava (cake) .

Topohe

Manioc (Sweet) .

Baheri

Coca ....

Ipe

Millet . . .

Matsaka

Fruit . . .

Kome

Palm needle

Aneio

Grain

Tsokome

Peppers . . .

Dio

Guarana fruit .

Inye

Pine-apple .

Kitsea

Guava .

Tuche

Plantain . .

Uhiko

Gum

Makhine

Plantation . .

Emiye

Leaf (letter)

Gwahake-ane

Stinging herb .

Ate

Lemon .

Teheba

Twig . . .

Katine

Maize

Ihio

Withe . . .

AhSba, mo

Manioc (flour) .

Chohema

Yam . . .

Kate

Basket . . .

Minyeba

Oil ... .

Diripa

Baulks of timber Imei

Platter . . .

Patahe

Comb

Pidogwa

Salt ....

Kanama

Cooking pot

Iguanye

Small timber .

Igwa

Door . . .

Cheugwa

Soap . . .

Nishiie, tagwa

Drinking gourd

Jirijo

Spoon . . .

Daihigwa

Firewood

Kuba

Tobacco . .

Banye

Grater . . .

Chilye

Tobacco stick-

Hammock .

Gwapa

match . .

Kugwao

House .

Ha-a

Torch . . .

Diripa

Manioc squeezer

Buahe

Water jar .

Ijo

Mirror .

Mekeme

Arrow .

Beremehe

Knife, sword

Nitsikwa

Arrow-poison .

Bakua

Mallet . .

Imepachura

Boat, canoe

Kihikwame

Paddle . .

Bodugwa

Blowpipe

Dodike

Rope (vegetable

Dance rattle

Tekie

cable) . .

Igwanye

Fish-net . .

Tsene

Signalhng drum

Kimwe

Gun ....

Anihe

Sword .

Pitoho

Head feathers .

Aboka

Whip . .

Gwachike

Beads . .

Ichkabe

Loin-cloth .

Ike, pakehe,

Clothes . . .

Kwaiame (loin-

kwaiame

cloth)

Man's bracelet

Manyame

Garment . .

Kameha

Metal . .

Tsitsi

Head ornament

Gwatako

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

309

Bush, the

. . Bahe

Dawn .

. Tsitsibeko

Death .

. Tsihibeko

Devil .

. Navena

Dust

. Anijio

Fire .

. Kihigwa

God . .

. Neva

Good Spirit

. Neva

Gunpowder

. Anijio

Morning

. Neva

Now .

. Ikuka

To-morrow .

. Pekore

Night .
Plantation
Rain
Shadow
Star .
Stream
Sun .
Thunder
Water .

Yesterday

Beko

Ernie

Nihava

Nave

Mikirigwa

Te-e

Neva

Tsitsi

Nepakio

Aiupe

Yes .

. Eh

Cha

To call attention

of a man . . Mupe i

To call attention
of a woman . Muije !

AU . . .

. Bemere

Other .

. Chipe

Enough, much . Lirane

Same

. Tedere

Slowly . .

. Tsikene

1 Quickly .

. Chukure

Far . .

. Chiejene

What .

. Itsebane, ina

Far away

. Kamine

When .

. Mukoka

Here .

. Iji

Where .

. Kia

Near

. Ferine

Why

. Ivekie

There .

. Eji

Angry .

. Kaiyupa

Low .

. Paa

Bad . .

. Nemine, imi-

Lower .

. Paa-paa

tine

Old . .

. Kieme

Black .

. Kiribebe

Purple .

. Chepanye

Cold . .

. Tsigore

Small

. Chuchine

Good

. Imine

Strong .

. Kupene

High .

. Kame

Thin . .

. Arenegwe

Higher .

. Kame-kame

Warm .

. Kogore

Lazy

. Urenere

White .

. Alijimuinya

Little .

. Neku

Young .

. Balyika

Long, big

. Kameme

I . .

Me . .

You . .
Yours .

: ■)■»

We . .

. 0

My . .

. . Ta

Us, Mine

Ours . .

310

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

One ....

Tsanere, tsape

Four . . .

Mieke-mieks

Two ....

Mieke

Five . . . .

Sause

Three . . .

Tsape-mieke

One-half . . .

Tiamie

To advance

Ikeyi

To make, do

Mene

To bathe . .

Maboigete

To move

Chinye

To beat flat

Kihigwa

To open

Paiyeke

To bind, sew .

Tsiko

To rain .

Nihaba

To break wind .

Nepo

To rest . . .

Paribe

To bring

Tsate

To run away .

Imiba

TocaU . . .

Pibwa

To scratch .

Medonakone

To catch hold .

Dekeha

To search .

Neku

To come

Dichabe

To see .

A ktime

To crush . .

Megwasako

To speak

Dibaje

To cut, shorten

Gwatairo

To strike . .

Kaboko

To drink . .

Mado

To throw . .

Wago

To eat . . .

Macho

To tie . . .

Chichi

To go . . .

Opeko

To wait . . .

Ubi

To go away

Gwadipe

To wash . .

Nitie

To hang

Nehigwa

To work . .

Wakimei

Where are you going ?

Kia bwipe ite ?

Where do you come from ?

j Kia-te Use ?

{Minekwe ?

Do not go away

Tsa petine

Stand still

Tachure

Sit down

Takebe

Bring here

Chibahe

Let us go

Mahu Mepei

Leave me alone

Ubiedere

Give me .

Okedake

Where (is it ?)

Kia

Whose (is this ?)

There is none .

Tsa ikatine

I do not know

( Ureta
Tsa quaha KStine

How many ? .

Muitemeko ?

What is the matter '

)

Ina ichabie ?

What is hurting

you ?

What are you called ?

Muipa dimene ?

Are you willing

le . ^VV^^^i^

^'^i^sie?

Cover it up

Wfimi^o

Hold your tongi

^'T^^fi^^

It is well

^Imiif^^

Good-bye

w. ii«i

W/)e«rl

LliriAflY.

APPENDIX VIII

Oikommo is within the hofo}

With our tribe there is Oikommo,
And whence cometh Oikommo,

And from where does he come ?
He comes from the clouds.

From the clouds he comes ;
And why does he come so far ?

And why does he come ?
In his land are no bread and few women

In his land is no bread ;
And what is the name of the stranger,

And what is his name ?
His name is Whiffena Ri-e-i,^

His name is Whiff-en-a,
And partly his name is Itoma,^

Itoma is also his name ;
And what is he called by his man friends.

And what is his other name ? .
His privy name is Ei-fo-ke,'^

Ei-fo-ke is his privy name ; ^
And why is he called Ei-fo-ke ?

* House. * Ri-e-i, white man. ^ jtoma, sun.

^ Ei-fo-ke, Turkey-buzzard.

^ Privy name. Reference to the fact that all Indians have two names.
See p. 154 for note on nomen penis sui.

LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO

Alcock, Frederick, F.R.G.S.

Trade and Travel in South America, 2nd edit. London, 190'j.
Andre, Eugene, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., M.S.A.

A Naturalist in the Guianas. London, 1904.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe.

Native Races of the Pacific States. 1875-76.
Bancroft, Edward, and Stedman,

Essay on Natural History of Guiana. 1769.
Bates, Henry Walter.

The Naturalist on the River Amazons. 2 vols. London, 1863.
Brazilian Year Book. 1908.
Brinton, Daniel G.

Religions of Primitive Peoples. London and New York, 1897.
Clough, R. Stewart.

The Amazons. London, n.d.
Crevaux, Dr. J.

Voyages dans I'Amirique du sud. Paris, 1883.

Fleures de I'Amirique du Sud Yapura.

Vocabulaire frangais-roucouyennes.
Darwin, Charles.

Narrative of the Voyages of the Beagle. 1839.
Deniker, Joseph, Sc.D. Paris.

The Races of Man. 1900.
Enoch, C. Reginald, F.R.G.S.

The Andes and the Amazons. London, 1907.

Peru. London, 1908.
'fountain, Paul.

The River Amazon. London, 191 4.
Hardenburg, W. E.

The Putumayo. London, 191 2.
History of South America, by an American. 1899.
Humboldt.

Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions by the New
Continent, 1799-1804. 3 vols. Bohn edition. 1852-53.
IM Thurn, Sir Everard F., K.C.M.G.

Among the Indians of Guiana. London, 1883.
Joyce, Thomas A.

South American Archaeology. London, 1912.
Koch-GrUnberg, Dr. Theodor.

Aruak-Spracken Nordwestbrasiliens und der angrenzenden Gebiete.

Journal de la SociStS des AmSricainists de Paris.

Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern : Reisen in Nordwest- Brasilien, 1903-
1905. 2 vols. Berlin, 1910.

Zeitschrift fUr Ethnologie.

313

314 THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Markham, Sir Clements R., K.C.B.

Expeditions into the Valley of the Amazons. Hakluyt Society, 191 1.
Peruvian Bark : Introduction of Chinchona Cultivation into India, 1860-
1880. 1880.

Maw, Henry Lister.

Journal of a Passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. London, 1829.
Nery, Baron de Santa-Anna.

The Land of the Amazons. London, 1901.
Oakenfull, J. C.

Brazil in igog. ist edit. Paris, 1909.
Orton, James.

The Andes and the Amazon. New York, n.d.
Ratzel, F.

History of Mankind. 3 vols. Translated from 2nd German edition
by Sir A. J. Butler, M.A. London, 1897.
Rice, Hamilton.

Quito to Iquitos by the River Napo.

Further Explorations in the North-West Amazon Basin. The River
Uaupes.

RoDWAY, James.

Guiana : British, Dutch, and French. London, 1912,
In the Guiana Forest. 1894.

Schoolcraft, H. R.

Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, etc., of the
Indian Tribes of the United States. Philadelphia, 1851.

SiMsoN, Alfred.

Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador and Exploration of the Putumayo River.
1886.
Spix, John Baptist von, and Martius, C.F.P. von.

Travels in Brazil, 1817-20. Translated by H. E. Lloyd. 1824.
Spruce, Richard, Ph.D.

Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes. 2 vols. London, 1908.

The Great River. Notes on the Amazon and its Tributaries. London, 1904.
Tylor, E. B.

Researches into the Early History of Mankind. London, 1865.
voN Martius, C. F. P.

Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic.

Beitrdge zur Ethnographic und Sprachenkunde Amerikas zumal
Brasiliens.

Wallace, Alfred R.

A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro. London, 1853.

On the Rio Negro. Pamphlet. 1853.
Waterton, Charles.

Wanderings in South America. New edition. London, 1879.

Westermarck, Edward.

The History of Human Marriage. 3rd edit. London, 1901.
WooDROFFE, Joseph F.

The Upper Reaches of the Amazon. London, 1914.

WITH ITS

INDEX

Agriculture — crops, 104 ; harvest, 193 ;
plantations, 103 ; sowing, 104 ;
women's work, 67, 102, 103-4, io5>
131

Amazons, legends of, 239-40

Animals — characteristics, 243-4 ; no
domestic, 52, 102 ; scarcity of,
128
Agouti, 127 ; antbear, 127 ; arma-
dillo, 128 ; bats, 51 ; capy-
bara, 127, 147 ; deer, 128, 147 ;
dogs, 102 ; jaguar, 36, 182, 185,
221, 231, 232, 244 ; monkey, 52,
128 ; paca, 127 ; peccary, 128-9,
148 ; tapir, 126-7, 147, 174, 244 ;
tiger {see jaguar)

Anthropophagy — dances, 204-5 ; feasts,
119-23 ; practices, 119 ; reasons
for, 120-21, 177

Arts and Crafts — basket-making, 96-7 ;
carving, 91-2, 93, 211-12 ; painting,
91 {see Ornaments) ; pottery, 62,
95, 96

Bates, Henry Walter, 52, 122, 125, 146,

199, 229, 232, 278, 280
Birds, 129 ; shooting, 108, 109 ; condor,

183-4 ; parrots, 129
Birth — customs, 146-52, 273 {see

Couvade) ; of twins, 120, 150, 244
Boats — how made, loo-ioi; canoes, 29,

loi, 265 ; rafts, loi, 265
Bridges, 28-9

Brown, John, 3, 8, 9, 14, 38, 249, 253
Burial, i75-7, 224 ; customs, 74, 81,

176, 226

Casement, Sir Roger, 234-5, 246

Cassava — preparation of, 132-4, 144 ;
grater, 99, 131-2 ; squeezer, 98,
132 ; Boro, 98, 132 ; manufacture
of, 98-9 ; Witoto, 55, 98-9, 132

Cazes, Mr. David, 2

Charms, 234

Chiefs, 64-5, 67, 71, 193, 200, 244, 257,

258-9 ; death of, 65, 70, 119, 176-
177 ; dress of, 71, 73, 76 ; house
of, 47, 64 ; influence of, 64 ; wife
of, 73, 123, 159, 200-201 ; women
of, 64, 159-60, 163. Katenere, 63.
Nonugamue, 63

Children, 88, 124-5, 135, 146-58, 208,
236, 257, 269, 276 ; boys, 76, 108,
165 ; capture of, 69-70, 274 ; girls,
68, 157-8, 164-5 ; marriage of,
162 ; stealing by spirits and tigers
of, 219-20, 224, 232 ; treatment
of, 155-8 ; toys, 93, 108, 156

Chorera, 4, 5, 6, 21

Climate, 22-4, 25

Clough, R. Stewart, 158

Coca, 104, 106, 135, 141-2, 179, 187 ;
effects of, 142-3, 264, 277 ; pre-
paration of, 141

Couvade, 55, 148, 151-3

Crevaux, Dr., 55, 57,72,^87,96,240-41,
276

Dances, Chapter xv. ; complaints at,
196-7 ; decoration and dress for,
75, 191 ; effect of, 202-3, 204 ;
invitation to, 192, 253 ; prepara-
tion for, 140, 191-2, 273. Varieties
— animal, 201-2 ; harvest, 193,
199-201, 208 ; initiation, 197-9 ;
Jurupari, 157, 158, 198, 212-13 ;
riddle, 201-2, 209 ; war, 203-5

Dancing- ground, 42, 102, 192, 194

Dancing staff, 193-4, 195

Dancing steps, 193, 194, 195-6, 203, 204

Death, 167, 168, 170, 173, 187 ; how
regarded, 61, 175, 178 ; of chief,
65 ; homicide, 118, 171-2 ; in-
fanticide, 146, 149-51, 170-71

Deniker, J., 54

Depilation, 120, 181-2, 241-2, 273, 281,
282

Disease, 168, 178, 186, 229 ; chronic,
170 ; infections, 169, 173 ; mental,
169; skin, 174, 175; beriberi, 13,

315

3i6

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

174 ; fever, 173, 188 ; smallpox,
174 ; sun-sickness, 173

Divorce, 165-6

Dress, 71-6 ; ceremonial, 74 ; travellers',
15, 16 ; men's, 72, 73 ; women's,
72, 79 ; breech-cloth, manufacture
of, 73 ; never removed, 74 ; liga-
tures, 73, 'j'jy 83, 84, 271. See
Chief, Medicine-man, etc.

Drinks, loi ; fruit, 104, 139 ; herb,
138, 277; intoxicating, 139-41;
unfermented, 138-9

Drugs, 140, 175, 182-3, 187. See
Poison, Snuflf, etc.

Escort, 3, 5, 71 ; management of, 4

Field of exploration, 17-18

Fire, 48-50, 133, 136 ; by friction, 48 ;
method of making unknown, 48 ;
plan of, 49, 50

Fish, 130-31, 245, 279

Fishing, 112; nets, 112; poison, 113-14;
spears, 113

Floods, 22, 32 ; traditions of, 238-9

Folk tales, 221-3, 231, 236-45 ; animal
stories, 243-4

Food, 50, 126, 128-30, 257 ; difficulty
of obtaining, 15, 38 ; eggs not
taken for, 130 ; influence of, 121,
147-8 ; preparation of, 68, 105,
135-6 ; scarcity of, 120, 121, 126 ;
when eaten, 134-5 ; animal, 128-9 ;
peppers, 105, 134; pepper-pot,
129, 134, 135-6; reptiles, 129;
salt, 124, 134 ; sauces, 133-4, 139 ;
sugar, 104 ; turtles, 129 - 30 ;
vermin, 130. See Cassava, Fish,
Fruit, etc.

Forest — birds in, 26 ; description of,
26-8 ; depressing influence of, 14,
35-6, 265, 266 ; lost in, 37 ; noises
in, 34 ; silence of, 34 ; tracks in,
28 ; travellers' danger in, 29 ;
travelling in, 14, 34-5, 37

Fruit, 104, 135, 136-7

Games, 157 ; singing, 208-9 ; toys, 93,

108, 156
Geophagy, 124-5

Hair, 274, 282, 285 ; how worn, 77-8,

274
Hammocks, 55 ; how slung, 47, 50 ;

made by women, 97-9 ; Witoto,

54, 91
Hardenburg, W. E., 62, 88, 149, 163
Head hunters, 122
Houses — private, 47-8, 161 ; temporary,

47 ; tribal — Maloka, 40-52 ; con-

struction of, 43 ; light in, 49, 186 ;
plan of, 41, 43, 45, 46 ; sites of, 42,
118 ; thatch of, 43-4
Hunting, 104, 107-9, "o \ rights, 112 ;
traps, iio-ii. See Weapons

Igarape Falls, 6

Implements — household ; earthenware,
133 ; human bone, 123-4 ; knives,
94 ; pestle and mortar, 99, 141 ;
tools, 95, 214; troughs, 99, 140-41

imThurn, Sir Everard, 55, 76, 152, 239,
274

Indian — beliefs. Chapter xvii. ; char-
acter, 4, 13, 61, no, 156, 202, 236,
256-64, 275-6 ; cruelty to infirm,
169-70, 257 ; ethics, 65, 66, 68,
260-62 ; kinship, 67, 244, 276 ; life,
50, 236, 246, 276-7, 278 ; origin
not decadent remnants, 54, 264-6 ;
physical traits, 269, Appendices ;
treachery, 4, 258, 259-60 ; types,
classification of, 53 ; Neolithic, 94,
266 ; voice, 207, 253-4 ; wood-
craft, 106-7

Indians, story of white, 240-41

Initiation, 157-8, 165 ; dances, 197-9

Insects, 30, 52 ; ants, 32, 33, 51, 97 ;
beetles, 82 ; bees, 31, 51, 130 ;
butterflies and moths, 31-2 ; flies,
30 ; harvest boys, 31 ; jiggers, 51,
173-4, 273 ; lice, 130, 173, 273 ;
mosquito, 31, 51 ; pium, 30-31, 51,
173 ; sandfly, 31 ; spiders, 51 ;
ticks, 31, 273 ; wasps, 31, 130

Joyce, Thomas A., 238

Jurupari, 229, 231. See also Dances

Koch-Griinberg, Dr., 46-7, 60, 77, in,
121, 151, 159, 175, 188, 194, 198,
247, 251, 262, 275, 282

Language, Chapter xix. ; drum, 215-
216, 253 ; gesture, 251 ; groups,
56, 57, 247

Manioc, 68, 104-5, 237-8 ; cultivation
of, 104-5, 131 ; preparation of, 98-
99, 131-4

Map — Witoto, 92-3

Markham, Sir Clements, 158

Marriage, 60-61, 66-7, 103, 159-67 ;
arrangement of, 158, 159-60, 161 ;
betrothal, 162 ; ceremonies, 160-
164 ; fidelity in, 69, 166-7, 262

Medicine-man, 140, Chapter xiv., 273 ;
dress of, 73, 95, 183 ; functions of,
151, 153, 168-9, 175, 185-6 ; in-
fluence of, 64 ; magic powers of.

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

317

172, 178, 179-81, 182, 183-4, 185,

186-7, 188-9, 224, 228, 232 ; poison
made by, 144, 178-9 ; succession
of, 181-2
Music, 207-8; instruments, 210-17;
castanets, 213; drums, 204, 210,
214-17 ; signal drimis, 192, 214-17,
253 ; flutes, 123, 192, 194, 195, 197,
204, 210, 211-12; pan-pipes, 192-3,
204, 210-211 ; rattles, 83, 84, 194,
195, 210, 213-14; trumpets, 211-
12; whistles, 194, 212; Jurupari,
212-13

Names, 56, 244, 248 ; boys' and girls',
153 ; not mentioned, 57, 153-4,
220, 226-7, 280

Nery, Baron de Santa-Anna, 239

Ornaments, 'j(> ; beaded garlands, 79^
80, 81, 191 ; beads, 79-80, 82-3,
213 ; bracelets, 82-3, 213 ; combs,
77-8 ; earrings, 85, 86, 275
feather head-dress, 75-6 ; feathers,
76-7, 83, 85, 86, 191 ; labret, 86
necklaces, 81, 82, 192 ; nosepin,
86, 275 ; paint, 87, 192 ; scarifica-
tion, 86 ; tattoo, 86, 87

Orton, James, 279, 280, 281

Palms, 30 ; Ada, 26 ; Astrocaryum, 30 ;
Chambiri, 97 ; edible varieties,
137 ; Iriartea ventricosa, 29

Poisons, 91, III, 1 16-17, 168-9, 219, 259-
260 ; preparation of, 144-5, 179

Proverbs, 259-60

Rainfall, 22

Reptiles, 33 ; anaconda, 184, 231 ;
boa-constrictor, 36 ; frogs, 129 ;
iguana, 129 ; lizard, 184 ; snakes,
129 ; fear of, 30

Rice, Hamilton, 97

Rivers, Dr. W. H. R., 237, 266

Rivers — Acre, 11 ; Aiary, 198 ; Amazon,
17, 18, 20, 33 ; fascination of, 17,
205 ; scenery of, 25 ; soil of basin,
24-5 ; Apaporis, 10, 59 ; Avio
Parana, 7, 8 ; black water streams,
19 ; Fue, 6 ; Igara Parana, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 18, 58 ; description of, 20 ;
Ira, 58 ; Issa, 5, 17, 19, 24, 31, 58,
173 ; description of, 19, 22 ; fish
in, 131 ; Issanna, 140 ; Japura, 6,
8, II, 12, 17, 18, 33, 58, 70, 73 ;
camp on, 5 ; scenery, 22 ; Ka-
huinari, 7, 11, 13, 31, 58 ; descrip-
, tion of, 22 ; journey up, 5 ; Kara
Parana, 18, 21 ; Kuemani, 58 ;
Miriti, 74 ; Napo, 18, 24, 222 ;

houses on, 44 ; trip up, 2 ; Negro,
18, 19, 104, 222 ; Papunya, 8, 20,
58 ; Tapajos, 113 ; Tanauru, 58 ;
Tikie, 61 ; Uaupes, 18, 59, 91, 112 ;
black water, 19 ; description of,
18-19 ; houses on, 46 ; proposed
journey up, i, 2, 13 ; Wamia, 58 ;
white water streams, 19

Robuchon, Eugene, 20, 31, 46, 65, 86,
88, 89, 99, 119, 122, 123, 163, 210,
270, 272 ; deserted by carriers, 7,
8 ; disappearance of, 5-12 ; dog
"Othello," 7, 8, 10, II ; last camp
of, 9, 10 ; last message from, 8 ;
previously lost, 11 ; reUef ex-
pedition, 8, II ; survivors of, 6

Route, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13

Rubber — Belt, 3, 4, 11, 40, 72, 80, 91,
loi, 174, 257 ; gatherers, 2, 3, 48,
63-4

Simson, Alfred, 243, 250

Slaves, 5, 69-70, 124, 170, 263, 273. See
Tribes, Maku

Snuff, 143, 179

Songs, 190, 196-7, 199-201, 206-10 ;
meaning of words lost, 190, 207-8

Spelhng, 57, 248-9

Spines, 30, 35 ; used for combs, yy

Spirits, 92, Chapter xvii. ; evil, 179,
185, 186, 218, 219-20, 223-5, 228-9,
233 ; Good, 218-19, 221, 223, 224-5,
226 ; appeared to man, 93, 221-3,
237-8 ; land of, 225-6 ; return of,
172, 176, 177, 182, 224-7 ; trans-
migratory, 224-5, 227-8

Spruce, Richard, 19, 32, 33, 99, loi,
128, 140, 188, 238, 240, 244, 280

Stone — absence of, 20, 24, 94, 265 ;
found at Chorera, 21 ; axes, 94,
260 ; magic stones, 183, 184

Tabu, 90, 243 ; birth, 121 ; coca, 68,
105, 143, 152 ; food, 121, 135, 147-
148, 152, 155, 243-4 ; medicine-
man's, 182 ; removal of, 180 ;
tobacco, 68, 105, 143-4 ; women's,
68, 105, 123, 135, 140, 143-4. 147-8,
165, 197, 212-13, 240, 244

Teeth, 275 ; necklaces of human, 81,
124 ; painted black, 88

Theft, 171

Tobacco, 104, 105, 187 ; ceremonial
Ucking, 153, 163, 221, 259 ; drink-
ing, 65-6, 179 ; not smoked, 143,
158 ; preparation of, 143-4. See
Tabu

Tobacco palaver, 46, 64, 65-6, 117, 165,
197, 222

Tobacco pot, 65, 144, 259

3i8

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

Trade, 61-2, 79, 91, 105-6, 108, 134,

144, 164, 217
Travelling in bush, 14, 15, 258-9 ; dress,

75 ; equipment, 15-16
Tree- climbing, method of, 106
Tribal Council, 65 ; house {see Houses,
Maloka) ; marks, 61, 86, 158 ;
signals, 253 ; system, 62-5
Tribes, 54, 56, 57, 58, 256 ; localities
changing, 59, 62

Aiary, 198

Akaroa, 247

Andoke, 132, 133, 157, 162, 231, 273 ;
appearance of, 60, 269, 275 ; canni-
bals, 120 ; character, 257, 259, 277 ;
chief, 5, 65 ; country of, 5, 58, 201 ;
dress of, 78 ; language of, 14, 248 ;
manufactures, 108 ; medicine-
man, 73, 95, 178, 179, 182, 183,
184 ; ornaments,88, 89 ; statistics,
59, 247

Apaporis, 74, 75, 116, 158, 175

Arakaine, 120

Arawak, 54

Auhishiri, 60

Bara, 59, 61, 108, 140, 157, 188, 282 ;
statistics, 247

Boro, 55, 56, 71, 104, 112, 127, 132,
133, 152, 153, 154, 162, 178, 216,
276 ; appearance of, 58, 60, 61, 77,
269, 271, 274-5, 282 ; beliefs of,
230-31, 234 ; cannibals, 119 ; char-
acter, 277 ; chief, 63, 197 ; dances,
194, 199-201 ; dress, 75, 78, 83, 84 ;
folk - tales, 221 - 2, 241 - 2, 244 ;
houses, 44, 48 ; language, 14, 220,
221, 247, 248, 251, 252, 253, and
Appendices ; localities, 58 ; manu-
factures, 91, 96, 108 ; ornaments,
82, 85, 86 ; statistics, 59, 247 ;
tribal marks, 87 ; tribes, 9, 11, 12,
62 ; women, 149

Botocudo, 129

Carib, 54

Catanixi, loi

Chepei, 6

Cobeu, 120

Goto, 58

Issa, 79, 124

Issanna, 140, 160

Japura, 59, 60, 75, 79, 116, 124

Jivaro, 115-16, 122, 158

Karahone, 55, 57, 61, 140, i74-5, 178 ;
appearance, 269, 274, 282 ; char-
acter, 257-8, 259-60 ; dress, 74, 77 ;
manufactures, 96 ; ornaments, 87 ;
poisons made by, 91, in, 118, 144,
168, 259-60 ; slave boy, 5, 273 ;
statistics, 59, 62, 247 ; women, 80

Kuretu, 104, 139, 140, 147, 150, 164,

Tribes (contd.) —

176, 226 ; appearance, 275, 281,
282 ; character, 60 ; country, 59,
75 ; dress, 75 ; houses, 48 ; lan-
guage-group, 58-9 ; ornaments, 84,
86 ; statistics, 247

Maku, 60, 61, 257, 262 ; appearance,
269 ; country, 59, 70 ; slaves, 70

Makuna, country, 75 ; dress, 75, 77 ;
houses, 44 ; ornaments, 86 ; stat-
istics, 247

Menimehe, 10, 56, 61, 75, 115, 139,
140, 143, 144, 276 ; appearance,

273, 274, 283, 284 ; beehives made
by, 51, 130; character, 11;
coimtry, 11, 58, 74 ; dress, 74, 76 ;
language, 247, 248 ; monkeys kept
by, 52 ; ornaments, 86 ; pottery,

62, 91, 95 ; shooting fish, 113 ;
statistics, 59, 247 ; tribal marks,
61, 86, 158 ; weapons, 95, 115, 116,
117, 194 ; women, 10

Muenane, 56, 61, 235 ; appearance,
77, 282 ; character, 277 ; country,
8, 63, 201 ; dance, 201, 208-9 ; lan-
guage, 247, 248 ; ornaments, 86,
275 ; statistics, 59, 247

Napo, 58, 60, 74, 76, 82, 85, 112, 113,
116, 140, 174, 175, 211, 217

Nonuya, 56 ; character, 277 ; chief,
63 ; country, 58, 63 ; dress, 76 ;
houses, 44, 46 ; language, 248 ;
statistics, 59, 247

Okaina, 56, 60, 99, 132, 188, 216,
235 ; appearance, 269, 275, 282 ;
country, 58 ; dances, 194, dress,
81, 83 ; language, 248 ; orna-
ments, 89 ; statistics, 59, 247 ;
tribes, 62

Opaina, 59 ; country, 74 ; dress, 75 ;
statistics, 247

Orahone, country, 58 ; dress, 74 ;
houses, 46; medicine - man, 73,
183 ; name, 58, 85 ; ornaments,
85, 88

Orihone, 60

Ouayana, 241

Pegua, 247

Piohe, 60

Resigero, 60, 61, 132 ; appearance,

274, 282, 283, 284 ; baskets for
ants, 97 ; cannibals, 120 ; character,
277 ; chief, 63-4 ; country, 8, 58,

63, 201 ; dress, 77; language, 248 ;
ornaments, 86 ; statistics, 59, 247

Rio Negro, 140, 221
Roucouyennes, 57
Saha, 247
Saka, 86
Takima, 59

THE NORTH-WEST AMAZONS

319

Tribes (contd.) —

Tapajos, 113

Tikie, 61, 104, iii, 147, i59. i94, 247,
270, 274, 275

Tukana, 61, 112, 135, 194, 195, 213,
234, 247, 270, 274. 275, 282

Tureka, 194

Turuka, 191, 194, 196

Tutapishco, 58

Tuyuka, 86, 143, 151, 254, 282 ;
houses, 47

Uacarra, 161

Uaenambeu, 160

Uaupes, 59, 76, 85, 116, 140, 143, 188,
198, 244, 248

Umaua, 74, 247

Witoto, 54, 55, 56, 57, 61, 71, 104,
115, 126, 132, 133, 151, 152, 153,
162, 178, 211, 231, 235 ; appear-
ance, 58, 60, 269, 270, 271, 274,
282 ; arts, 92, 93 ; character, 277 ;
country, 58 ; dance, 209-10 ; dress,
78, 83, 84 ; fishing, 112, 113 ;
houses, 44, 46, 48 ; language, 14,
72, 220, 221, 248, 250, 251, 252,
253; language - group, 56, 247;
manufactures, 91 ; ornaments, 82,
86, 88, 89 ; statistics, 59, 60,
62, 247 ; tribes, 6, 62, 93 ; tree
venerated by, 233 ; women, 3, 149,
155, 223, 260, 275

Yahabana, 84, 86

Yahua, 247

Yahima, 10, 116, 143, 194, 247

Tribes (contd.) —

Yakuna, 86

Yuri, 56, 247

Zaparo, 226
Tylor, E. B., 152, 264

Vampires, 51-2

Vegetable life, 24-5, 26, 104, 130, 131

von Martius, Dr., 57, 264

Wallace, Dr. Russell, i, 19, 44, 46, 60,
91, loi, 121, 134, 158, 160, 161,
197, 240, 275, 280

War, 61, 62, 1 17-19 ; blood feuds, 61 ;
causes, 61 ; dance, 203-5 ; de-
fensive, 5, 14, 118; dress, 74;
preparations for, 5, 185 ; prisoners
in, II 8-1 9, 120-21, 159-60; strategy,
117

Waterton, Charles, 181

Weapons, 16, 115 ; arrows and darts,
109, 115- 17, 145; blow-pipes, 91,
107, 108-9; club, 115, 116, 194;
fish-spears, 113 ; guns, 91, 115 ;
javelins, iii, 113, 115, 116, 145 ;
shields, 115, 119 ; swords, 115, 116,
260; traps, iio-ii, 118

Women, 47, 51, 67-9, 195 ; behaviour
of, 262 ; duties and work of, 90-91,
95, 96, 97, 98, 102, 134, 173-4, 263 ;
mothers, 147-55 ; physical traits,
271-2, 282 ; position of, 135, 159-
160, 161, 164-5, 166, 240; pro-
stitutes, 159-60, 167 ; widows, 167

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lA/hiffen, Thomas

The north-west
Amazons

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